July 6 juillet 13:45
– 15:45
Room CMEL-102
Chair: Leonard
V. Kaplan
, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Capital punishment and the responsibility placed upon jurors
selected to serve in capital murder trials may be creating mental health risks
for some citizens serving the criminal justice system. Therapeutic jurisprudence
research has suggested that jury duty may be hazardous duty for some individuals
serving the American judicial system. A number of studies have reported
observing symptoms in jurors after their jury service consistent with
posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Previous research has
identified several contributing factors to stress reactions including gruesome
and graphic evidence, media attention, fear of retribution by the defendant,
sequestration, the length of the trial, the personalities and relationship of
jurors to each other, community responsibility, courtroom rules and procedures
and whether jurors must consider the death penalty. This researcher, based on 15
capital murder trials in Texas, compared the stress levels of capital murder
jurors tasked to make a sentencing determination with those jurors who had no
sentencing authority, and between groups based on sentence outcomes. Results
indicate that some jurors experienced PTSD symptoms and may have been exposed to
a significant mental health stressor. Debriefing and post-trial counseling may
be an appropriate psychological recompense to jurors for performance of their
civic duty in capital cases.
The “Boy Scout case” is an excellent example of the clash between two basic values–The right to associate with whom you please and the right of society to prohibit discrimination. The Boy Scouts of America prohibit homosexuals from serving as adult leaders. An Assistant Scoutmaster’s membership was revoked because he was an acknowledged homosexual. He then sued claiming discrimination. The Boy Scouts claimed the right as a private not- for- profit organization to determine their own membership. The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Boy Scouts. The United States Constitution has been interpreted to recognize the right of groups of people to engage in “expressive association.” At the same time, both state and federal laws protect people against discrimination, on various grounds including sexual orientation, and also protect the opportunity for all persons to obtain the advantages and privileges of any place of “public accommodation.” The Boy Scout case attempts to define the boundaries where these two concepts collide. Having won its case, the Boy Scouts are now facing a severe reaction. Institutions, such as schools, that sponsored troops and agencies, such as United Way chapter and other funding sources, have threatened to, or have withdrawn their support for the Boy Scouts. In reaction, the Boy Scouts are suing claiming, among other things, their right to free speech is now impinged.
One of the enduring myths about avid computer users is that they are social isolates, locked in their basements alone for hours on end, windows tightly sealed and shuttered. Similarly, people who use online dating services are often characterized as “losers” or “lonely hearts,” people who are unable to form normal social ties and enjoy normal social interaction. In this view, they suffer from low self-esteem and pursue online dating out of desperation. This paper challenges the conventional wisdom. Based on a telephone survey of a representative sample of Canadians (n=1200) and an online survey of people who use online dating services (n=5681), both conducted at the end of 2000, we show that online daters are not social isolates and do not suffer low self-esteem. Instead, they are ordinary people who use online dating as a means of overcoming constraints on their ability to establish intimate relations with others. Online dating is not a symptom of poor mental health. Instead, it has emerged as an adaptation to postindustrial society–a society in which the popularity of marriage is declining, work schedules are becoming more demanding, geographical mobility is increasing, and work settings are becoming less acceptable as dating markets.
Not surprisingly those offenders who are most in need of
treatment while incarcerated are frequently the most resistant to genuinely
participating in treatment. Upon their return to the community they respond
poorly to the multiple issues, problems and situations that they face and are at
risk of re-offending. The
author will examine how these reintegration difficulties relate to the
offender’s experience of prison culture. He will describe working with and
forming a therapeutic alliance with men who have entrenched criminal values. He
will identify interventions
that can be useful in addressing their maladaptive and sometimes destructive
responses to the stress of returning to “the street.” He will address such
issues as the “con code”, anger, trust, victim to victimizer, dependency,
manipulation, blaming “the system” and machismo.
The death penalty is a hotly debated topic in America and
around the globe. While countless scholarly debates involve questions of whether
capital punishment is ethical, constitutional, moral, racially biased, adequate,
accurate, or simply wrong, it is a rare discussion which examines a more
closely-held tragedy of the death penalty: the living survivors of the
condemned. Every individual on death row has a story: a mother, a father,
grandparents, perhaps a wife or a husband, or children. The family, often
already impoverished, bankrupts itself trying to save their loved one. Like the
condemned, they too are imprisoned by the impending date of execution.
Occasionally, a false ray of hope stalls the process and the family is forced to
wait again, sometimes for decades, for the execution. When an individual is
executed at the hands of the state, in the name of “justice,” the family
suffers; the innocent are imprisoned by the process. Their anguish escalates
until the execution,
and the aftereffects endure long after that. Parents lose a child, children lose
a parent. A family forever loses a provider, a pillar of emotional, if not always financial,
support. Society may forget the executed, but the family is forever changed. The
death penalty leaves its mark on the innocent in a way that imprisonment never
could. Capital punishment brands a stigma onto the survivors which endures for
generations. With more and more innocent death row inmates narrowly escaping
their fate by advances in DNA testing and other forensic sciences, the time to
rethink the death penalty is nigh. Indeed, most death penalty cases that are
appealed are reversed or modified on appeal. In a society obsessed with what is
“just,” how can we let the innocent continue to be punished?
A recent United States government report warns of an increase in terrorist events in America and elsewhere. If this prediction proves accurate, a knowledgeable community mental health response following terrorist events will be crucial. On April 19, 1995, a terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City killed 168 people and injured 853 others. The Oklahoma City bombing was a human-made, centripetal disaster in which the victims lived and worked in the affected areas and the entire community shared in the assault. Such disasters tax local resources, but can also unite residents in the recovery process. The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services was the lead agency in crafting a community mental health response to reduce impairment of those affected. The Project Heartland program, which opened on May 15, 1995 and closed in the fall of 2000, was the first community mental health program in the US designed to intervene in the short to medium term with survivors of a major terrorist event. The goal of Project Heartland was to provide crisis counseling, support groups, outreach, and education. In 1998, Project Heartland was given a Special Award by US Attorney General Janet Reno at the annual Crime Victim Service Award ceremony held at the US Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. Dr. Call represented the Board of Directors of the ODMHSAS at this presentation. The present program is designed to describe the lessons learned in the areas of planning and service delivery as well as the types and extent of services provided in the project’s existence. The program will also describe the disaster model used.
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