Showing papers by "John Monahan published in 2019"

Evolving Public Views On The Likelihood Of Violence From People With Mental Illness: Stigma And Its Consequences.

Abstract: Highly publicized acts of violence routinely spark reactions that place blame on the perpetrator’s presumed mental illness. Despite solid evidence that people with mental illness are unlikely to be...

Impact of Risk Assessment on Judges’ Fairness in Sentencing Relatively Poor Defendants

Abstract: The increasing use of risk assessment algorithms in the criminal justice system has generated enormous controversy. Advocates emphasize that algorithms are more transparent, consistent, and accurate in predicting re-offending than judges’ unaided intuition, while skeptics worry that algorithms will increase racial and socioeconomic disparities in incarceration. Ultimately, however, judges make decisions—not algorithms. In the present study, real judges (n=340) with criminal sentencing experience participated in a controlled experiment to test whether the provision of risk assessment information interacts with a defendant’s socioeconomic class to influence sentencing decisions. Results revealed that risk assessment information reduced the likelihood of incarceration for relatively affluent defendants, but the same risk assessment information increased the likelihood of incarceration for relatively poor defendants. This finding held after controlling for the sex, race, political orientation, and jurisdiction of the judge. It appears that under some circumstances, risk assessment information can increase sentencing disparities.

Judicial Reliance on Risk Assessment in Sentencing Drug and Property Offenders: A Test of the Treatment Resource Hypothesis:

Abstract: For almost two decades, Virginia has used risk assessment to justify “alternative” nonprison sentences for eligible drug and property offenders. In Study 1, we examined how frequently alternative s...

Risk and resources: A qualitative perspective on low-level sentencing in Virginia.

Abstract: Virginia's sentencing guidelines include alternative sanctions based on the use of a quantitative instrument called the Nonviolent Risk Assessment (NVRA) that identifies individuals convicted of drug and property crimes that are considered to be at lower risk of recidivism. Although nondispositive, the NVRA affords judges the discretion to grant alternative sentences to eligible low-risk defendants. In this study, we explore how judges make use of the NVRA instrument when sentencing individuals convicted of low-level drug and property crimes. Through semistructured interviews (N = 24) and inductive thematic analysis, the research team identified contextual factors that influence the use of the NVRA results, including: the availability of alternative programs in a community, the role of court actors, particularly prosecutors, in shaping the sentencing outcomes, as well as an individual judge's willingness to defer to or reject negotiated plea agreements offered by the prosecutor. Our research shows that while some judges are aware of and embrace the benefits of the instrument, others lack knowledge altogether of its function and empirical basis. We identified seven themes that account for variation in how actuarial risk is utilized in the sentencing process. Our findings provide insight into the practical challenges of using risk-based assessment as a tool for the sentencing of low-level convictions. As more states adopt risk-based approaches to sentencing, studying Virginia, which has gone farther than other states in legislating this strategy, becomes increasingly important.

Lawyers at the Peak of Their Careers: A 30‐Year Longitudinal Study of Job and Life Satisfaction

Abstract: A decade ago, we conducted a 20‐year longitudinal study of career and life satisfaction among the class matriculating at the University of Virginia School of Law in 1987. Here, we extend our repeated measures follow‐up from 20 to 30 years—from the time when respondents were a mean of 43 to the time they were a mean of 53 years old. The 2017 survey employed substantially the same instrument used in 2007, with the addition of a new section assessing potential period effects occurring over the past decade that might have influenced respondents' working conditions, including a stronger stress on economic sustainability. The 2017 response rate was 81 percent of those who had responded to the 2007 survey (constituting 58 percent of the class matriculating in 1987). We found respondents to have taken diverse career paths, with no single work setting accounting for more than one‐quarter of the respondents and with fully one‐third of the respondents changing jobs in the past decade. Marked gender differences in the professional lives of respondents persisted (e.g., women continued to be much more likely than men to forego full‐time employment “in order to care for children” (30 percent vs. 4 percent)). Working conditions at large private law firms stayed problematic, with the portion of respondents negatively affected by a stronger stress on economic sustainability being twice as high among those working in large firms (77 percent) than among those working in other settings (38 percent). Finally, both career satisfaction and life satisfaction again were found to be high, with 77 percent of respondents satisfied with the decision to become a lawyer, and 91 percent satisfied with their lives more broadly.

The Classification of Violence Risk.

Abstract: The Classification of Violence Risk (COVR®) is an interactive software program designed to estimate the risk that a person hospitalized for mental disorder will be violent to others. The software l...

Judging the Use of Risk Assessment in Sentencing

Abstract: Judges are using risk assessment instruments in criminal cases more than ever before. The role of risk assessment is increasingly prominent at all stages of the criminal justice system, including policing, pretrial detention, sentencing, corrections, and parole. In its 2017 revision, the Model Penal Code prominently endorsed consideration of risk in the sentencing process, and specifically, to potentially divert lower-risk defendants to reduced or alternative sentences. The 2018 FIRST STEP Act, perhaps the most far-reaching federal sentencing reform in a generation, mentions risk no less than one hundred times, and relies on risk assessments to allocate prison programming and prisoner release. In this Article, we focus on the role of a sentencing judge in using risk assessment.