Asperger's Disorder remains an under-diagnosed condition because of clinical unfamiliarity with its adult presentation. As forensic clinicians become familiar with the presentation of Asperger's disorder, it appears that affected individuals are over-represented in forensic criminal settings. Unique features of such persons may heighten their risks for engaging in criminal behavior. Both Theory...

criminal behavior is not exactly new. Perhaps most convincingly, several adoption studies in the 1970s and 1980s provided powerful evidence that having an incarcerated birth parent raised one’s own risk of earning a criminal conviction as an adult, even if reared by pro-social, law-abiding – but genetically unrelated – foster parents. This remarkable finding was replicated in adoptive cohorts a...

decriminalization limits and narrows the sphere of criminal law through two methods: to eliminate the criminal description of special behavior (a) and to remain or not remain it in the public jurisdiction of other formal control mechanisms (b). if it is left in the public jurisdiction, it requires non-criminal sanctions. therefore, decriminalization is a process that at least, has got two outlo...

Many urban environments have criminal gangs competing for control of available resources and gang territories. Research in criminology has linked the effect of these gang territories on criminal activity by criminal gangs. However, a great deal of a given criminal group’s activity occurs beyond the boundaries of that gang’s known territory but within a region we term a gang’s criminal sphere of...

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Does the basic prosocial trait of Honesty-Humility predict crime? We test whether (1) differentiates between imprisoned criminal offenders and national population, (2) predicts frequency behavior (the number reported crimes), (3) type crime leading to imprisonment (violent, non-violent, sexual). found that had lower levels than but did not crimes in this group. Additionally, we examined if viol...

Forensic psychiatry expertise may be useful to criminal courts in several ways, including evaluating competence (e.g., to stand trial, waive Miranda rights, confess, plead, represent oneself, or be sentenced), assessing responsibility for alleged criminal behavior, and clarifying mental or psychosocial factors that may mitigate criminal charges or the form and severity of punishment. This colum...

Minority (over) representation in the criminal justice system remains a puzzle, both from a policy and an intervention perspective. Cross-sectional reviews of the policies and practices of the criminal justice system often find differential rates of involvement in the criminal justice system that are associated with the nature of the criminal charge/act or characteristics of the offender; howev...

Childhood abuse is relatively prevalent among women and is an important risk factor for both criminal behavior and suicide-related behavior (SRB). Based on a sample of 266 female offenders, we address one theoretical and one practical issue. First, from a theoretical perspective, we assess whether internalizing (depression and anxiety) and externalizing (substance abuse and antisocial behavior)...