Monstrous Crimes and the Failure of Forensic Psychiatry

Monstrous Crimes and the Failure of Forensic Psychiatry
Author: John Douard
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2012-11-13
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9400752792

The metaphor of the monster or predator—usually a sexual predator, drug dealer in areas frequented by children, or psychopathic murderer—is a powerful framing device in public discourse about how the criminal justice system should respond to serious violent crimes. The cultural history of the monster reveals significant features of the metaphor that raise questions about the extent to which justice can be achieved in both the punishment of what are regarded as "monstrous crimes" and the treatment of those who commit such crimes. This book is the first to address the connections between the history of the monster metaphor, the 19th century idea of the criminal as monster, and the 20th century conception of the psychopath: the new monster. The book addresses, in particular, the ways in which the metaphor is used to scapegoat certain categories of crimes and criminals for anxieties about our own potential for deviant, and, indeed, dangerous interests. These interests have long been found to be associated with the fascination people have for monsters in most cultures, including the West. The book outlines an alternative public health approach to sex offending, and crime in general, that can incorporate what we know about illness prevention while protecting the rights, and humanity, of offenders. The book concludes with an analysis of the role of forensic psychiatrists and psychologists in representing criminal defendants as psychopaths, or persons with certain personality disorders. As psychiatry and psychology have transformed bad behavior into mad behavior, these institutions have taken on the legal role of helping to sort out the most dangerous among us for preventive "treatment" rather than carceral "punishment."

Caught in the Web of the Criminal Justice System

Caught in the Web of the Criminal Justice System
Author: Lawrence A. Dubin, J.D.
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2017-06-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1784502987

Increasing numbers of people with autism and other developmental disabilities are being convicted of sex offences, resulting in draconian and public punishment. Yet even when evidence shows that people with these conditions often pose little threat to society, or lack a core understanding as to why their actions break the law, the "sex offender legal regime" doesn't allow any room to take the disability into account. This ground-breaking book offers a multi-disciplinary examination of how unjust sex offense laws trap vulnerable groups such as those with developmental disabilities. Drawing on research, empirical evidence and including case studies, experts from the fields of law, ethics, psychology and sociology explore what steps should be taken in order to ensure that laws are just and take into consideration factors such as the vulnerability of the perpetrators. Investigating the consequences caused by public hysteria over sex offenses, this book highlights the judicial failure to protect defendants with developmental disabilities in the context of the unjust and hyper-punishment of all those charged with sex offenses. Proposing a new way forward based on research and evidence-based sentencing for sex offenses, and elimination of the sex offender registry, this book offers an informed and compassionate view that is essential for all professionals working in this field.

Narrative and Metaphor in the Law

Narrative and Metaphor in the Law
Author: Michael Hanne
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2018-02-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1108422799

Scholars from many disciplines discuss the crucial roles played by narrative and metaphor in the theory and practice of law.

The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma

The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma
Author: Monica Williams
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2018-05-08
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1479897116

"When a South Carolina couple killed a registered sex offender and his wife after they moved into their neighborhood in 2013, the story exposed an extreme and relatively rare instance of violence against sex offenders. While media accounts would have us believe that vigilantes across the country lie in wait for predators who move into their neighborhoods, responses to sex offenders more often involve collective campaigns that direct outrage toward political and criminal justice systems. No community wants a sex offender in its midst, but instead of vigilantism, [the author] argues, citizens often leverage moral, political, and/or legal authority to keep these offenders out of local neighborhoods. Her book, the culmination of four years of research, 70 in-depth interviews, participant observations, and studies of numerous media sources, reveals the origins and characteristics of community responses to sexually violent predators (SVP) in the U.S. Specifically, [this book] examines the placement process for released SVPs in California and the communities’ responses to those placements. Taking the reader into the center of these related issues, [the author] provokes debate on the role of communities in the execution of criminal justice policies, while also addressing the responsibility of government institutions to both groups of citizens."--

Incest in contemporary literature

Incest in contemporary literature
Author: Miles Leeson
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2018-08-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1526122189

This is the first edited collection of essays which focuses on the incest taboo and its literary and cultural presentation from the 1950s to the present day. It considers a number of key authors and artists, rather than a single author from this period. The collection exposes the wide use of incest and sexual trauma, and the frequency this appears within contemporary literature and related arts. Incest in contemporary literature discusses the impact of this change in attitudes on literature and literary adaptations in the latter half of the twentieth century, and early years of the twenty-first century. Although primarily concerned with fiction, the collection includes work on television and film. Authors discussed include Iain Banks, A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Simone de Beauvoir, Ted Hughes, Doris Lessing, Ian McEwan Iris Murdoch, Vladimir Nabokov, Andrea Newman and Pier Pasolini and Sylvia Plath.

Responding to Sexual Offending

Responding to Sexual Offending
Author: K. McCartan
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2014-10-05
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1137358130

This collection brings together international contributors from multiple disciplines to discuss the current public, social and governmental understandings and responses to sexual violence. Exploring issues such as how to manage sex offenders, the volume provides recommendations for how to reduce offending and improve community engagement.

The War on Sex

The War on Sex
Author: David M. Halperin
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2017-03-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822373149

The past fifty years are conventionally understood to have witnessed an uninterrupted expansion of sexual rights and liberties in the United States. This state-of-the-art collection tells a different story: while progress has been made in marriage equality, reproductive rights, access to birth control, and other areas, government and civil society are waging a war on stigmatized sex by means of law, surveillance, and social control. The contributors document the history and operation of sex offender registries and the criminalization of HIV, as well as highly punitive measures against sex work that do more to harm women than to combat human trafficking. They reveal that sex crimes are punished more harshly than other crimes, while new legal and administrative regulations drastically restrict who is permitted to have sex. By examining how the ever-intensifying war on sex affects both privileged and marginalized communities, the essays collected here show why sexual liberation is indispensable to social justice and human rights. Contributors. Alexis Agathocleous, Elizabeth Bernstein, J. Wallace Borchert, Mary Anne Case, Owen Daniel-McCarter, Scott De Orio, David M. Halperin, Amber Hollibaugh, Trevor Hoppe, Hans Tao-Ming Huang, Regina Kunzel, Roger N. Lancaster, Judith Levine, Laura Mansnerus, Erica R. Meiners, R. Noll, Melissa Petro, Carol Queen, Penelope Saunders, Sean Strub, Maurice Tomlinson, Gregory Tomso

Through the Black Mirror

Through the Black Mirror
Author: Terence McSweeney
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2019-07-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030194582

This edited collection charts the first four seasons of Black Mirror and beyond, providing a rich social, historical and political context for the show. Across the diverse tapestry of its episodes, Black Mirror has both dramatized and deconstructed the shifting cultural and technological coordinates of the era like no other. With each of the nineteen chapters focussing on a single episode of the series, this book provides an in-depth analysis into how the show interrogates our contemporary desires and anxieties, while simultaneously encouraging audiences to contemplate the moral issues raised by each episode. What if we could record and replay our most intimate memories? How far should we go to protect our children? Would we choose to live forever? What does it mean to be human? These are just some of the questions posed by Black Mirror, and in turn, by this volume. Written by some of the foremost scholars in the field of contemporary film and television studies, Through the Black Mirror explores how Black Mirror has become a cultural barometer of the new millennial decades and questions what its embedded anxieties might tell us.

Sorting Sexualities

Sorting Sexualities
Author: Stefan Vogler
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2021-05-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 022677693X

In Sorting Sexualities, Stefan Vogler deftly unpacks the politics of the techno-legal classification of sexuality in the United States. His study focuses specifically on state classification practices around LGBTQ people seeking asylum in the United States and sexual offenders being evaluated for carceral placement—two situations where state actors must determine individuals’ sexualities. Though these legal settings are diametrically opposed—one a punitive assessment, the other a protective one—they present the same question: how do we know someone’s sexuality? In this rich ethnographic study, Vogler reveals how different legal arenas take dramatically different approaches to classifying sexuality and use those classifications to legitimate different forms of social control. By delving into the histories behind these diverging classification practices and analyzing their contemporary reverberations, Vogler shows how the science of sexuality is far more central to state power than we realize.

Animal Maltreatment

Animal Maltreatment
Author: Lacey Levitt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2015-10-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 019936091X

Animal maltreatment includes physical or sexual abuse, neglect, or hoarding of animals, and all states have laws prohibiting various forms of animal maltreatment. About one-half have statutory provisions mandating or allowing courts to order forensic mental health assessments of individuals convicted of animal maltreatment offenses. Yet there are few resources on this topic for mental health and legal professionals and none that offer guidance for evaluations in animal maltreatment cases. Animal Maltreatment is the first book to provide an overview of animal maltreatment as a legal, clinical, and forensic issue. It offers guidance for mental health and legal professionals involved in the adjudication of animal maltreatment offenses, with a special focus on forensic mental health assessments in such cases. The book reviews the legal and social contexts of animal maltreatment and then describes research-based and clinical knowledge within the area. It offers perspectives on social and clinical responses in animal maltreatment cases and describes prospects for an area of forensic mental health assessment focused specifically on the forensic evaluation in cases of animal maltreatment. This is the first book that brings together descriptions of the characteristics of those who maltreat animals, factors associated with animal maltreatment behaviors, information about the impact on the animals themselves, and evaluations of offenders to assist courts in decisions about their rehabilitation. Animal Maltreatment will be of great benefit and interest to general and forensic psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers, as well as lawyers, legal scholars and students, veterinarians, humane law enforcement professionals, and others involved in animal welfare advocacy.