Showing papers by "John Monahan published in 2011"

Current Directions in Violence Risk Assessment

Abstract: Over recent years, a variety of instruments that improve clinicians' ability to forecast the likelihood that an individual will behave violently have been published. Increasingly, these instruments are being applied in response to laws that require specialized risk assessments. In this article, we present a framework that goes beyond the “clinical” and “actuarial” dichotomy to describe a continuum of structured approaches to risk assessment. Despite differences among validated instruments, there is little evidence that one predicts violence better than another. We believe that these group-based instruments are useful for assessing an individual’s risk and that an instrument should be chosen based on an evaluation’s purpose (i.e., risk assessment vs. risk reduction). The time is ripe to shift attention from predicting violence to understanding its causes and preventing its (re)occurrence.

The Individual Risk Assessment of Terrorism

Abstract: I attempt to identify the central conceptual and methodological challenges that must be overcome if the risk assessment of terrorism is to make the same progress that in recent years has distinguished the risk assessment of other forms of violence. Four principal conclusions are offered. First, clarity from the outset on what is being assessed — the risk of terrorism in the aggregate, or of specific types of terrorism, or of specific phases in the process of becoming a terrorist, or of specific roles in terrorist activity — is a prerequisite to progress in research.Second, one current approach to the risk assessment of more common violence (e.g., assault) — the approach known as structured professional judgment — usefully may be applied to the risk assessment of terrorism. However, given that many known risk factors for common violence are in fact not risk factors for violent terrorism, the substantive content of any instrument to assess the risk of terrorism will be very different from the substantive content of current instruments that address common violence. Third, since there is little existing evidence supporting the non-trivial validity of any individual risk factors for terrorism, the highest priority for research should be the identification of robust individual risk factors. Promising candidates include ideologies, affiliations, grievances, and “moral” emotions. Finally, it is highly unlikely that an instrument to assess the risk of terrorism can be validated prospectively. An infrastructure for facilitating access to known groups of terrorists and non-terrorists from the same populations may be crucial for conducting a program of scientifically rigorous and operationally relevant research on the individual risk assessment of terrorism.

From Coercion to Contract: Reframing the Debate on Mandated Community Treatment for People with Mental Disorders

Abstract: Approximately half the people receiving treatment in the public sector for mental disorder have experienced some form of "leverage" in which deprivations such as jail or hospitalization have been avoided, or rewards such as money or housing have been obtained, contingent on treatment adherence. We argue in this Essay that framing the legal debate on mandated community treatment primarily in terms of "coercion" has become counterproductive and that the debate should be re-framed in terms of "contract." Language derived from the law of contract often yields a more accurate account of the current state of the law governing mandated community treatment, is more likely to be translated into a useful descriptive vocabulary for empirical research, and is more likely to clarify the policy issues at stake than the currently stalemated form of argumentation based on putative rights. Our hope is that adopting the language of contract may help to identify those types and features of mandated community treatment that are genuinely problematic, rather than perpetuating the unhelpful and misleading assumption that all types of leverage amount to "coercion."

Twenty-five years of Social Science in Law

Abstract: In this essay, we take the publication of the seventh edition of the casebook Social Science in Law (2010) as an opportunity to reflect on continuities and changes that have occurred in the application of social science research to American law over the past quarter-century. We structure these reflections by comparing and contrasting the original edition of the book with the current one. When the first edition appeared, courts' reliance on social science was often confused and always contested. Now, courts' reliance on social science is so common as to be unremarkable. What has changed--sometimes radically--are the substantive legal questions on which social science has been brought to bear.

Interventions by Virginia's Colleges to Respond to Student Mental Health Crises

Abstract: Objective: This study examined interventions by colleges in 2008–2009 to respond to students during mental health crises. Methods: Public (N=15) and private (N=25) four-year colleges and two-year community colleges (N=23) in Virginia were surveyed about academic policies governing responses to apparent mental health crises among students and how often they were invoked. Results: Procedures used most often by public and private colleges, respectively, were parental notification (six and 25 per 10,000 students); voluntary medical withdrawal, usually linking readmission to treatment (29 and 25 per 10,000 students); mandatory treatment following disciplinary sanction (302 and 1,704 per 10,000 students); and monitoring by a campus threat assessment team (15 and 51 per 10,000 students). Procedures for involuntary hospitalization and involuntary medical withdrawal were rarely invoked. Community colleges were much less likely than four-year colleges to use any of these procedures. Conclusions: Most four-year colleges in Virginia, both public and private, occasionally invoke a variety of protective interventions to respond to apparent mental health crises experienced by students, but the number of students annually affected by these policies is generally small. The main value of procedures for mandated or leveraged treatment in college may be to motivate students with mental illness to seek treatment voluntarily. Aside from sporadic use of threat assessment teams in extreme instances, community colleges, which do not have counseling centers, lack the capacity to undertake these interventions. (Psychiatric Services 62:1439–1442, 2011)

The ASA’s Missed Opportunity to Promote Sound Science in Court

Abstract: The American Sociological Association (“ASA”) filed an amicus brief in Wal-Mart v. Dukes in which the ASA defended the testimony of the plaintiffs’ sociological expert. Unfortunately, the ASA’s portrayal and defense of the method and opinions of this expert do not match the actual method used, and opinions offered, by the expert in the Wal-Mart case. We demonstrate that none of the ASA’s defenses of the expert’s method has merit and that the expert violated basic methodological rules set out by the ASA’s own sources. The opinions to which the expert testified, therefore, lacked a scientific foundation.

Beyond context: social facts as case-specific evidence

Abstract: Experts often seek to apply social science to the facts of a particular case. Sometimes experts link social science findings to cases using only their expert judgment, and other times experts conduct case-specific research using social science principles and methods to produce case-specific evidence. This Article argues against expert judgment as the means of linking general social science to specific cases, and for the use of methodologically rigorous case-specific research to produce "social facts, " or case-specific evidence derived from social science principles. We explain the many ways that social fact studies can be conducted to yield reliable case-specific opinions, and we dispel the view that litigation poses insurmountable barriers to the conduct of casespecific empirical research. Social fact studies are feasible for both plaintiffs and defendants, and they provide much sounder conclusions about the relevance of social science to a litigated case than does linkage via expert judgment.

The ASA’s Missed Opportunity to Promote Sound Science in Court

Abstract: The American Sociological Association (ASA) filed an amicus brief in Wal-Mart v. Dukes in which the ASA defended the testimony of the plaintiffs’ sociological expert. Unfortunately, the ASA’s portrayal and defense of the method and opinions of this expert do not match the actual method used, and opinions offered, by the expert in the Wal-Mart case. The authors demonstrate that none of the ASA’s defenses of the expert’s method has merit and that the expert violated basic methodological rules set out by the ASA’s own sources. The opinions to which the expert testified, therefore, lacked a scientific foundation.

Current Directions in Violence Risk Assessment

Abstract: A variety of instruments have been published over recent years that improve clinicians’ ability to forecast the likelihood that an individual will behave violently. Increasingly, these instruments are being applied in response to laws that require specialized risk assessments. In this article, we present a framework that goes beyond the "clinical" and "actuarial" dichotomy to describe a continuum of structured approaches to risk assessment. Despite differences among them, there is little evidence that one validated instrument predicts violence better than another. We believe that these group-based instruments are useful for assessing an individual’s risk, and that an instrument should be chosen based on an evaluation’s purpose (i.e., risk assessment vs. risk reduction). The time is ripe to shift attention from predicting violence to understanding its causes and preventing its (re)occurrence.

Case-Specific Sociological Inference: Meta-Norms for Expert Opinions

Abstract: This essay responds to comments on our earlier paper discussing the American Sociological Association’s amicus brief in the Wal-Mart v. Dukes case. We identify areas of agreement and disagreement with the commentators and close with proposed meta-norms that should govern experts who seek to apply social science research to the facts of a particular case.

Case Specific Sociological Inference: Metanorms for Expert Opinions

Abstract: Our article critical of the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) amicus brief in Wal-Mart v. Dukes (Mitchell, Monahan, and Walker 2011 [pp. 60520, this issue]) sought to engage sociologists and other social scientists on the methods and norms that should guide a social scientist who testifies as an expert witness and offers opinions that are directly linked to the specific parties in a case. Some reactions to our article proceed from mistaken assumptions and beliefs that distract from a clear discussion of how experts should arrive at case-specific opinions. In this brief essay, we note our agreement with much of what Sorensen and Sharkey (2011 [pp. 635-45, this issue]) say, note our disagreement with much but not all of what Tomaskovic-Devey (2011 [pp. 621-34, this issue]) says, identify some points of agreement and dispute with Nielsen, Myrick, and Weinberg (2011 [pp. 646-67, this issue]), and provide a straightforward answer to the prescriptive question of how scientifically reliable case-specific opinions should be presented to courts.

Interventions Used by Colleges to Respond to Student Mental Health Crisis

Abstract: August 2011 This paper may be downloaded without charge from the Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1920927 A complete index of University of Virginia School of Law research papers is available at Law and Economics: http://www.ssrn.com/link/U-Virginia-LEC.html Public Law and Legal Theory: http://www.ssrn.com/link/U-Virginia-PUB.html