reoffending than those who completed treatment. The predictors of nonsexual violent recidivism and general (any) recidivism were similar to those predictors found among nonsexual criminals (e.g., prior violent offenses, age, juvenile deliquency). Our results suggest that applied risk assessments of sexual offenders should consider separately the offender's risk for sexual and nonsexual recidivism. Assessing chronicity is crucial for clients whose sexual behaviors have brought them into conflict with the law. Many exceptional criminal justice policies, such as postsentence detention (e.g., Anderson & Masters, 1992), lifetime community supervision, and community notification, target those sexual offenders likely to reoffend. Clinicians need to judge whether the client's behaviors are truly atypical of the individual (as the client would like us to believe) or whether the client merits a virtually permanent label as a sexual offender.

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Predicting relapse: a meta-analysis of sexual offender recidivism studies.

A meta-analysis of 82 recidivism studies (1,620 findings from 29,450 sexual offenders) identified deviant sexual preferences and antisocial orientation as the major predictors of sexual recidivism for both adult and adolescent sexual offenders. Antisocial orientation was the major predictor of violent recidivism and general (any) recidivism. The review also identified some dynamic risk factors that have the potential of being useful treatment targets (e.g., sexual preoccupations, general self-regulation problems). Many of the variables commonly addressed in sex offender treatment programs (e.g., psychological distress, denial of sex crime, victim empathy, stated motivation for treatment) had little or no relationship with sexual or violent recidivism.

/pdf/the-characteristics-of-persistent-sexual-offenders-a-meta-19hgzia124.pdf

The Characteristics of Persistent Sexual Offenders: A Meta-Analysis of Recidivism Studies.

Self-determination theory posits that the degree to which a prosocial act is volitional or autonomous predicts its effect on well-being and that psychological need satisfaction mediates this relation. Four studies tested the impact of autonomous and controlled motivation for helping others on well-being and explored effects on other outcomes of helping for both helpers and recipients. Study 1 used a diary method to assess daily relations between prosocial behaviors and helper well-being and tested mediating effects of basic psychological need satisfaction. Study 2 examined the effect of choice on motivation and consequences of autonomous versus controlled helping using an experimental design. Study 3 examined the consequences of autonomous versus controlled helping for both helpers and recipients in a dyadic task. Finally, Study 4 manipulated motivation to predict helper and recipient outcomes. Findings support the idea that autonomous motivation for helping yields benefits for both helper and recipient through greater need satisfaction. Limitations and implications are discussed.

When helping helps: autonomous motivation for prosocial behavior and its influence on well-being for the helper and recipient.

The increasing recognition of the large number of people victimized by sexual assault has focused considerable attention on methods for deterring its perpetrators. In particular, law enforcement and mental health professions alike seek ways to prevent sex offenders from repeating their criminal behavior. Some evidence suggests sex offenders often continue offending even after incarceration or clinical treatment. However, recidivism rates for sex offenders are unusually hard to establish, owing to gross underreporting of sex crimes. This article presents a comprehensive review of empirical studies of sex offender recidivism. It brings together data from a wide variety of studies on both treated and untreated sex offenders of all types. Because of the variety and gravity of methodological problems in these studies, guidelines are discussed for sample selection and description, study design, criterion assessment, and data analysis. With these methodological principles in mind, the results of some 42 studies are examined for what they can tell us about sex offender recidivism and efforts to reduce it.

Sex offender recidivism: A review.

To date, analyses of differences between adolescents' and adults' judgment have emphasized age differences in cognitive factors presumed to affect decision making. In contrast, this article examines research and theory on threepsychosocial aspects of maturity of judgment: responsibility, temperance, and perspective. For several psychosocial dimensions of maturity that are likely to affect judgment, the existing pvidence, while indirect and imperfect, indicates that the greatest differences are found in comparisons between early adolescents versus middle and late adolescents. Developmental research on maturity that focuses specifically on mid-and late adolescence, that simultaneously examines both cognitive and noncognitive factors, and that investigates the relation between these factors and the ability to make good decisions is greatly needed.

https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/lhb/20/3/249.pdf

Maturity of judgment in adolescence: Psychosocial factors in adolescent decision making.

/pdf/the-regrettable-clause-united-states-v-comstock-and-the-1jphqsxwqc.pdf

The Regrettable Clause: United States v. Comstock and the Powers of Congress

The topic of judicial independence is, of course, an especially fitting one for us to consider as we gather to honor Chief Justice Carrico. ... But Jefferson also wrote that judicial "independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government." ... But, as I hope to show, the Founders followed Blackstone in identifying other factors as crucial to the case for judicial independence. ... There is, I think, some distinct and fundamental significance for Blackstone in the independence of the judiciary that is linked directly and positively to the distinction he draws between the legislature and the executive. ... All of Blackstone's arguments for judicial independence are picked up and amplified by leading American Founders, including the link we've just seen between judicial independence and the overall goal of separating and dividing governmental power. ... Independence of position, then, is concerned with tangible, external threats to the courts' proper exercise of their constitutional function, and it is secured in the Founders' view by external structural protections for the individuals who exercise the power of the courts. ... The second strand in the weave making up judicial independence is what I am calling independence of decision. ...

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The Three Independences

/pdf/the-political-grammar-of-early-constitutional-law-2b1cz7chff.pdf

The Political Grammar of Early Constitutional Law

From the earliest days of the republic, one of the central responsibilities of the Attorney General of the United States has been to advise officers of the executive branch on questions of law.' In creating the office, the First Congress identified litigation in the Supreme Court and the provision of legal advice as the duties of the Attorney General: the last sentence of section 35 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 states that

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The Constitutionality of the Bank Bill: The Attorney General’s First Constitutional Law Opinions

/pdf/constitutional-law-as-though-the-constitution-mattered-17m8trpyns.pdf

H. Jefferson Powell

Papers

The Regrettable Clause: United States v. Comstock and the Powers of Congress

The Three Independences

The Political Grammar of Early Constitutional Law

The Constitutionality of the Bank Bill: The Attorney General’s First Constitutional Law Opinions

Constitutional Law as Though the Constitution Mattered