A Call for Help: Women Offenders' Reflections on Trauma Care

Female prisoners have extensive trauma histories and complex treatment needs that contribute to their criminality, yet trauma screening and treatment is not widespread in prisons. This article examines qualitative data gathered from face-to-face interviews with 31 female offenders in Canadian prisons. Using a grounded theory approach we demonstrate an unmet need for trauma-specific services for female offenders. These services go beyond trauma-informed practice and treat the psychological and behavioral sequelae of trauma exposure (e.g., mental illness and addictions) to facilitate recovery. The findings suggest that women in prison want and need specific treatment for trauma exposure. Integrating trauma-specific services involves a cultural shift within the prison environment that might be achieved by positioning trauma within the risk–need–responsivity model as an additional risk factor for criminality. Although counter to the public health perspective that trauma is a health concern, it is a way to ensure that trauma becomes part of the battery of care in corrections so that the needs of traumatized women are addressed while they are in custody. This was a unique opportunity to learn about what women would like to help deal with their experiences of trauma.     

Differentiating patterns of substance misuse by subtypes of antisocial traits in male offenders

Among criminal offenders, two subtypes of antisocial traits, psychopathy and externalizing-only, are associated with an especially elevated risk for substance use disorders (SUDs). The present study examined the associations of these traits with patterns of substance misuse. In a sample of 1410 male offenders, we used diagnoses for alcohol, cannabis, opioids, and stimulants to examine the association between antisocial traits and SUD severity, as well as, age at substance use initiation. Results indicated that externalizing-only, but not psychopathic, traits predicted greater severity of SUDs (i.e. increased likelihood of dependence) across all substances. By contrast, psychopathic, but not externalizing-only, traits predicted earlier initiation of use across all substances. These differential patterns of substance misuse may be a reflection of distinct psychobiological processes. Ultimately, parsing the patterns of substance use across a continuum of clinically heterogeneous samples, rather than within circumscribed diagnostic categories, might help to refine the phenotype and improve the prediction of substance-related problems.     

Improving Judicial Controls over the Pretrial Development of Civil Actions: Model Rules for Case Management and Sanctions

This article follows two earlier pieces in which the author reported the findings of a pilot empirical exploration of how well the discovery system in civil litigation is functioning. Brazil begins by focusing on the principal problems his field studies exposed and by suggesting a theory of discovery reform which responds to the nature and sources of those problems. His principal thesis is that too often neither judges nor attorneys assume sufficient responsibility for the discovery system as a system. Most of this article is devoted to two major proposals that are designed to promote in the judiciary and in counsel a sense of responsibility for the pretrial system and to equip the judiciary to convert that sense into action. Brazil proposes a comprehensive model rule that courts could use to manage the pretrial development of civil actions. He then uses his model as a background for suggesting modifications to and extensions of the proposed revision of Rule 16 that the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules has circulated for comment. He also offers a critique of current provisions for sanctions and advances an alternative sanctions rule that acknowledges a right to compensation for damages caused by an opponent's breach of pretrial obligations and that reduces the scope of judicial discretion to refuse to impose compensatory awards.     

Special Masters in the Pretrial Development of Big Cases: Potential and Problems

This article explores the advantages and disadvantages of referring discovery matters in complex cases to special masters. In the first section Brazil explains how the results of his earlier research into the discovery system exposed problems that the appointment of masters might help solve. He then describes the kinds of pretrial tasks and roles federal courts have assigned to special masters and the ways that using a master can expedite and rationalize the case development process. In the second half of the article, the author assesses the major objections to delegating judicial responsibilities to masters and the problems that frequent appointments might cause. Along the way, Brazil offers practical suggestions to judges about how to avoid potential difficulties and how to maximize the effectiveness of this increasingly popular procedure.     

Referring Discovery Tasks to Special Masters: Is Rule 53 a Source of Authority and Restrictions?

The author concludes that federal judges who want to appoint special masters to perform duties related to civil discovery may not look to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for authority to do so. By examining the historical backdrop against which the original rules were written, as well as the minutes of the proceedings of the first Advisory Committee, Brazil demonstrates that neither Rule 53 nor any other rule was designed to grant federal trial courts power to assign pretrial discovery tasks to special masters. In fact, the evidence the author marshalls shows that the original Advisory Committee explicitly rejected the idea that the Federal Rules should authorize even a limited role for special masters in connection with discovery depositions.
Finding no authority for such appointments in the Federal Rules, the author turns to the judiciary's "inherent power." Drawing principles from the seminal Supreme Court opinion in this area, Brazil infers that in some circumstances the courts' inherent authority is a sufficient premise for delegating discovery tasks to special masters. Noting that the reported cases contain no clear guidelines about when or how federal judges should use this authority in making pretrial appointments, Brazil concludes by calling for a new federal rule covering this important subject.     

Substance use disorders in forensic psychiatric patients

There is a lack of detailed information on the role of substance use disorders (SUD) as a substantial factor in offences and treatment in forensic psychiatric patients. The aim of this study was to get a better understanding of these specifics. Clinical records of 193 male patients admitted to a Dutch forensic psychiatric hospital were scrutinized on anamnestic, diagnostic and risk assessment data. One of the central findings was that the prevalence of SUDs was high. Patients with an SUD had a more extensive criminal history, unstable and deviant lifestyle and higher risk of violent behavior than patients without a substance use disorder. No differences were found in duration of treatment, aggressive incidents and leave. Another important finding was that a distinction could be made between patients with substance use as a primary criminogenic risk factor and patients with substance use as a secondary risk factor. Although substance use is identified as a general risk factor, this study supports the idea of sub categorization of patients with an SUD and emphasizes the need for a different treatment approach. Further study is needed to identify specific treatment approaches, based on more differentiated profiles of these patients.     

Civil Discovery: Lawyers'Views of Its Effectiveness, Its Principal Problems and Abuses

This article, the second in a three-part series based on interviews of 180 civil litigators in Chicago, describes lawyers'assessments of the health of the discovery system and their views about the relative severity of several major problems and abuses that burden the discovery process. The data present a disturbing picture of the way the discovery system functions, especially in larger cases. Big case litigators are much unhappier with the current state of affairs in discovery than are their smaller case counterparts, and apparently for good reason. Tactical jockeying, evasive and dilatory practices, and various forms of harassment play major and costly roles in a high percentage of large lawsuits. And in at least one of every two big cases the discovery system fails to distribute the relevant information to all the parties. Perhaps the most dramatic evidence of disaffection with the current state of affairs in major litigation, however, is the widespread support the lawyers expressed for more aggressive judicial involvement in the process and for more frequent, telling use of sanctions to punish its abusers.
The third article in this series will report the lawyers'reform proposals and will explore some of the implications of the data described here.     

Views from the Front lines: Observations by Chicago Lawyers About the System of Civil Discovery

This is the first in a series of articles that will report the results of a pilot effort to assess how well the system of civil discovery is working and to identify the principal problems which burden that system. The study revolves around interviews with 180 Chicago area litigators. This first essay, which synthesizes observations, insights, and complaints by interviewed attorneys, suggests that the world of civil discovery is not one monolithic whole, but consists of subworlds which exhibit clearly distinguishable features and problems. In addition to describing the principal problems which afflict the discovery system in its two major subworlds, the author reports what the interviewed lawyers suggest are the primary causes of those problems. While the litigators identify many ways in which the character of lawyering encumbers and disrupts the discovery process, they also locate much of the blame for the system's problems in the behavior of judges and the inefficiency of the judicial machinery. The interviews produced a dramatically widespread appeal to the courts to increase use of sanctions as a means of restraining discovery abuse.