Interview, diagnostic, and legal aspects in the forensic psychiatric assessments of deaf persons

Forensic psychiatric assessments rely on many underlying presumptions concerning the language development and abilities of their subjects. Although these assumptions may apply across a culturally diverse group of hearing subjects, they probably do not apply to those who are prelingually deaf because such deaf persons never developed verbal language. In this article, a review of the range of literature focusing upon the unique aspects of interviews, diagnosis, and legal understanding of the deaf is conducted. An attempt to illuminate those features believed to be most relevant to forensic assessments of this unique population is made. The demands of interviews conducted in manual language are discussed and particular attention is paid to the impact of the interpreter upon confidentiality, privilege, agency, and the dynamics of the interview. It is also suggested that many of the baseline behaviors of the deaf may, at least partly, result from differences in communication style between the deaf and hearing. This article reports that many major mental disorders occur with the same frequency among the deaf and hearing and include many of the same symptoms. However, organic mental disorders may occur at a somewhat greater rate among the deaf because of the organic basis of deafness. Finally, the ways in which deafness and the use of an interpreter may influence the deaf person's ability to understand and relate to legal concepts and process are discussed. It is noted that many of these problems may arise from a deaf persons inexperience or undereducation about legal matters rather than psychopathology.     

An analysis of the relationship between being deaf and sexual offending

Abstract

Research demonstrates that deaf offenders are over-represented within the criminal justice system. In addition, those deaf offenders who are incarcerated within prison estates or psychiatric units are predominantly incarcerated for sexual offences. This paper will evaluate the existing literature surrounding the reasons behind this bias. In particular, this review will examine the characteristics of deaf offenders in relation to their personalities, language and brain development and abilities to communicate. This paper will consider proposed associations between mental illness and childhood sexual abuse amongst deaf individuals and later sexual offending. This paper attempts to evidence differences between deaf and hearing offenders in order to explain why more deaf offenders commit sexual crimes than hearing offenders. This paper will conclude that the research is scarce and inconclusive and that current assessments and treatment are potentially inadequate due to the profound difficulties associated with accurately understanding and communicating with the deaf offender.     

英汉写作对比——显性与隐性

英汉语因各自的社会历史、文化背景、心理特征、思维模式以及文字的独特性而呈现出巨大的差异。本文通过对这两种语言表达差异的分析,论述了英汉语的文化和写作中的词法、句法、语篇以及修辞手段的显性与隐性状态。     

Facing Your Criminal Record: Expungement and the Collateral Problem of Wrongfully Represented Self

While substantial sociolegal research has analyzed the deleterious effects of criminal records on life outcomes, little has examined the records themselves, or their relationship to the people they represent. In this article I take a novel tact, treating criminal records as the material, textual documentations of an individual's past. I then observe expungement seekers—people who encounter their own records—to understand their reactions. From this data, I use inductive theories of symbolic interactionism to theorize another collateral effect of the criminal record: it represents people in ways that depersonalize their social identities, and prevents them from communicating corrective self‐understandings to the governing bodies that author the records. I conclude with my main theoretical contribution: “having a criminal record,” literally, means having a textual proxy that the state has authored on its own terms, without input from the people whom it permanently represents, and while concealing from those people the apparatus behind authorship. As a consequence, the criminal records system serves as a barrier to reciprocal communication between ex‐arrestees and a legal system that represents them in ways that they may want to contest. This “wrongful representation” is a collateral effect of having a criminal record that impedes the ability of ex‐arrestees to manage or repair their relationship with the state that has punished them.     

Clarification of rules involving residual functional capacity assessments; clarification of use of vocational experts and other sources at step 4 of the sequential evaluation process; incorporation of "special profile" into regulations. Final rules

For purposes of this document, "we," "our," and "SSA" refer to the Social Security Administration and State agencies that make disability determinations for the Social Security Administration. "You" and "your" refer to individuals who claim benefits from the Social Security Administration based on "disability." In this final rule we clarify our rules about the responsibility that you have to provide evidence and the responsibility that we have to develop evidence in connection with your claim of disability. This includes our rules about when we assess your residual functional capacity (RFC) and how we use this RFC assessment when we decide whether you can do your past relevant work or other work. These clarifications address issues of responsibility raised by some courts in recent cases; clarify that we may use vocational experts (VEs), vocational specialists (VSs), or other resources to obtain evidence we need to help us determine whether your impairment(s) prevents you from doing your past relevant work; add a special provision to our rules stating that, if you are at least 55 years old, and specific other circumstances are present, we will find that you are disabled; and make a number of minor editorial changes to clarify and update the language of our rules, and to use simpler language in keeping with our goal of using plain language in our regulations.     

Donor-conceived people's views and experiences of their genetic origins: a critical analysis of the research evidence

This article reports on a systematic review of English language, peer-reviewed publications from 13 empirical studies with donor-conceived children and adults regarding their experiences and perceptions of donor conception. A total of 19 articles that met the inclusion criteria were reviewed. These were identified by means of a bibliographic search of four electronic databases for the period 1990-2011 and supplemented by the authors' personal knowledge of work in this field. No reports from such studies appeared prior to 2000, and more than half have been published since 2008, demonstrating the relative novelty of research in this field. Much of the reviewed research evidence concerns individuals conceived through sperm donation conducted under a regime promoting both anonymity and nondisclosure. Consequently, there is little research that pertains to individuals conceived through other forms of collaborative reproduction, nor to those conceived under arrangements and regimes in which early parental disclosure is both advocated and practised and the identity of the donor and of other genetic relatives may be accessible to donor-conceived individuals. The studies consistently report that most donor-conceived people have an interest in securing information about their genetic and biographical heritage - more information than most of them have been able to obtain. Although a number of methodological limitations in the research base are identified, the authors conclude that the evidence is sufficiently robust to promote the implementation of policies and practices that promote transparency and openness in collaborative reproduction, thus reflecting the importance of maximising future choices and opportunities for donor-conceived people.     

论举证责任及其科学概念的表述

举证责任是证明理论中的核心概念,它与诉讼理论及其诉讼结构等有着内在的联系,其概念的表述亦存在诸多的不同.许多学者认为我国历史上不存在举证责任问题,其实只要对我国历史上不同证据制度进行剖析,就不难发现我国也是存在举证责任方面的规范的.西方各国关于举证责任的理论与配置研究相当深入,因诉讼制度的区别而有其差异.通过古今中外的考查,可对举证责任的科学概念作出界定,使研究引向深入.     

The Economics of Prisons

This survey scans the English language research on prisons published since the appearance of Becker's (1968) seminal piece. After first describing the economic nature of prison and parole, issues concerning comparative institutional analysis and organizational design are discussed, including the role of private prisons. Empirical evidence on production functions for prisons, recidivism and offender rehabilitation programs is reviewed. A brief overview of policy issues and suggestions for future research concludes the survey.     

"If I lie, I tell you, may heaven and earth destroy me." Language and Legal Consciousness in Hong Kong Bilingual Common Law

Based on an ethnographic study of courtroom interactions in the bilingual (Chinese/English) common law system in Hong Kong, this article investigates how language plays a constitutive role in shaping the ways people use, argue, and think about law. While the use of English in Hong Kong prescribes by default the supposedly universal speech act of statement-making, the presence of Cantonese allows local speech acts to be brought into the courtrooms. Two local speech acts, "catching fleas in words" and "speaking bitterness," are discussed. The findings of this study suggest that by studying the local practices and beliefs in postcolonial settings, researchers can gain insights into the complex ways in which Anglo American–style legal institutions are reconstituted.     

The Words of Violence: Autobiographical Narratives of Abused Women

Personal narratives tell the stories of people’s lives as well as provide insight into the meaning of those experiences. These narratives both reflect and are influenced by the relationships within which an individual is embedded. In this study, autobiographical narratives for two groups of women were compared: women who had experienced habitual gender-based domestic violence in their couple relationships and women who had not. The language of narratives was analyzed by LIWC (Language Inquiry and Word Count procedure). Results showed that the language and structure of narratives by women with a history of domestic violence indicated greater stress and trauma, more incoherent space-time organization, and poorer relationship quality. Women who experienced violence wrote longer narratives that contained proportionately more negative emotion words and more references to cognitions and physical/body issues, and indicated more disorganized structure by means of incoherent use of verbal tense, more impoverished use of connectives, and greater use of negative sentence syntax and discrepancy words. They also included proportionately more pronoun references to ‘I’,‘You’,’ and ‘He’, indicating self vs. partner conflictual relationships. However, women who had experienced relationship violence for longer decreased their references to the emotions of fear and anxiety, suggesting adaptation to violence over time.     

The use of “security” jargon in sustainable development discourse: evidence from UN Commission on Sustainable Development

The premise of discourse theory in environmental policy is that realities are shaped by language. One discourse that is gaining popularity is the concept of environmental security, a discourse that presupposes environmental threats as urgent. The attempt to cast environmental issues as security issues has resulted in the common use of security jargon, idioms, and metaphors in policymakers’ and politicians’ statements. Various analyses attempt to identify why natural resources are discussed in terms and language of security. However, far fewer studies have attempted to identify differences in the manner in which different types of resources are incorporated into such a discourse by different actors and what variables contribute to this process. This study examines the construction of the security references, security arguments, and language in the statements of the Commission on Sustainable Development dealing with energy and water. We found that international organizations and Non-governmental Organizations were somewhat more likely than state actors to use security references to discuss sustainability issues. The issues securitized are not the traditional high political ones such as regime stability and conflicts, but rather issues more associated with human security, such as access to renewable energy, affordable food, and clean water. The fact that in many statements examined the use of security references was not associated with any existential threat and hence did not comply with the conditions of the Copenhagen School raises some doubts as to whether security language in these statements implies a true securitization move. We also examined whether the use of the term “security” by states was correlated with greater resource scarcity or vulnerability. In the case of water-related sessions, the evidence was mixed, depending on the choice of dependent variable. The results from energy security regressions, however, were inconsistent with the hypothesis that greater scarcity or vulnerability induces more use of security language.     

入世与法律英语教学改革

我国加入世界贸易组织后,人才市场对熟练掌握法律和法律英语的高水平、复合型人才的需求日趋增强,我国的法律英语教学面临挑战,针对现今法律英语教学存在的主要问题,法律英语教学应该改革。     

A deaf sex offender

Sex offenders are common among deaf criminals seen for psychiatric evaluation. This has previously been attributed to discretionary handling of deaf criminals within the criminal justice system. The author presents the case of a deaf sex offender which illustrates discretionary handling, but which also suggests altered psychosexual development. He then discusses several characteristics in the development and lives of deaf people that may contribute to an altered psychosexual development and an increase likelihood of committing sex offenses.     

Interpersonal Relationships and Stalking: Identifying When to Intervene

One of the issues arising out of the introduction of stalking legislation is how to distinguish between the kinds of courting behaviours, reconciliations, termination of relationships and other social interactions that are within the ‘normal range’ and those behaviours that are perceived by the wider community as stalking. This study examined the impact of intent, persistence, perspective and gender on perceptions of behaviours following the dissolution of a relationship. Responses of 868 community members indicated that behaviour was only perceived as illegal when explicit evidence of intent was present rather than when it was absent. Ratings for foreseeability of arousing fear were higher when explicit evidence of intent was present rather than absent and when behaviour constituted a repeated rather than single episode. Participants were more likely to determine that the behaviour of the actor would be repeated when the scenario depicted a repeat episode rather than a single episode. Suggested target responses differed according to whether or not the scenario depicted explicit evidence of intent to arouse fear. Results are discussed in relation to previous studies on community perceptions of stalking as well as the capacity of the research to inform interpretations of stalking legislation.     

The effect of the presence and seating position of an interpreter on eliciting information and cues to deceit

The present experiment examined how the seating position of an interpreter during investigative interviews affects information elicitation and cues to deceit. A total of 60 native English speakers were interviewed in English and 200 non-native English speakers were interviewed in English (a non-native language) or through an interpreter who either sat next to the interviewer, behind the interviewee or interpreted via the telephone. Interviewees either lied or told the truth about a mock security meeting they watched. Interviewees who spoke in their native language provided more detail than interviewees who spoke in their native language through an interpreter or in a non-native language (English) without an interpreter. The latter groups did not differ. Additionally, the amount of detail differentiated truth tellers from liars in all conditions and interviewees found the presence of an interpreter to be a largely positive experience. The interpreter’s seating position had no effect on the findings.     

The role of respect in interactions with police among substance-using African refugee young people in Melbourne,Australia

Racialized policing and substance use are major issues faced by African young people in Australia. In-depth interviews with 18 refugee young people who use alcohol and/or drugs examined interactions with police. Status respect and human respect played important roles in interactions with police. Participants felt unfairly targeted by police and reported that they were disrespected by police through the use of discriminatory language, failing to differentiate between individuals leading to a sense of loss of self-identity, and stereotyping. Development and implementation of programs focusing on building mutual understanding and respect is needed to improve relations between refugee-background youth and police.     

新刑事诉讼法证据规则评析——基于证据裁判原则的视角

刑事诉讼中的证据裁判原则要求认定案件事实必须依据证据,证据应具有证据能力且需依据法定程序进行审查判断,运用证据证明案件事实要达到法定的证明标准。依证据裁判原则的基本要求进行审视,我国新刑事诉讼法在证据制度的规定上有了长足的进步,但仍存在不少问题与缺憾,主要表现为立法条文过于粗疏、操作难问题依旧突出、诸多内容遗漏等,这些有待进一步充实入法。     

Breaking the silence. Family ties and social networks of the deaf. A case study of East Flanders,Belgium, 1750–1950

In this article the social networks and family ties of a pre-industrial (married and/or died between 1770 and 1850) and industrial (married and/or died between 1850 and 1950) cohort of deaf men and women are compared to each other and to a cohort of non-disabled siblings. The aim is to assess the extent to which the deaf participated in a full-fledged manner in family and social life and to evaluate the ways in which their social networks changed as a result of nineteenth-century industrialisation processes. The extent of social integration is deduced from the profile of the witnesses registered in marriage and death certificates. In the absence of personal testimonies of social experiences, demographic sources are invaluable for providing a glimpse of the everyday social life of ordinary people in the past. In combination with historical records identifying disabled individuals, this research is a first attempt to study the social opportunities of an up-until-now often forgotten, but nevertheless integral part of society: the disabled. Based on the analysis of the witnesses, this article argues that in the course of the nineteenth century deaf individuals became less embedded in their social environment and their relationship with their family weakened. The minority of married deaf persons, however, expressed a much higher connectedness with family.     

Detecting deception in second‐language speakers

Purpose. We examined whether language proficiency had an impact on lie detection. Methods. We collected video footage of 30 targets who spoke English as their native or second language and who lied or told the truth about a transgression. Undergraduate students (N = 51) then judged the veracity of these 30 clips and indicated how confident they were in their ratings. Results. Participants were more confident when judging native‐language truth‐tellers than second‐language truth‐tellers. In addition, participants were more likely to exhibit a truth‐bias when observing native‐language speakers, whereas they were more likely to exhibit a lie‐bias when viewing second‐language speakers. Conclusions. Given the difficulties and biases associated with second‐language lie detection, further research is needed.     

Domestic Violence and Social Support in a Clinical Sample of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Women

The present study examined domestic violence and perceived social support in a clinical sample of Deaf and Hard of Hearing women. Forty-six adult Deaf and Hard of Hearing females receiving outpatient mental health services completed a modified version of the Conflict Tactics Scale and the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List. Results showed that nearly three-quarters (71.7%) of the sample related experiencing psychologically abusive behaviors, and over one-half (56.5%) reported a history of physical violence from a partner. In addition, participants reported experiences of domestic abuse directly related to their deafness. Level of perceived social support did not differ for participants with a history of domestic violence victimization compared to those with no such history. Findings underscore the need for increased awareness of Deaf and Hard of Hearing women as a population at high risk, and warranting further investigative attention, with regard to domestic violence.