Impossibility results in the axiomatic theory of intertemporal choice

Public Choice - We have shown formally that for infinite generation, transitive, intertemporal choice procedures the familiar conditions of Pareto optimality and independence together with the...     

A comparison of respondents in initial and recommitment hearings

Legislators and researchers have focused on one aspect of civil commitment: initial commitments. Many patients, however, remain in the hospital after their initial commitment expires and, thus, must be recommitted if they are to remain in involuntary treatment. Demographic, clinical, and treatment data were collected on 374 adults having initial or recommitment hearings during a 3-month period at a large state hospital in Virginia. Respondents in initial commitment hearings were younger and displayed acute symptoms; recommitment respondents were older with symptoms of chronic psychopathology, especially those associated with schizophrenia and organic brain syndrome. The subject of recommitment patients and hearings needs to be a focus of future research efforts to determine whether these differences are reflected in a greater relative gap between the letter and practice of the law in recommitment hearings.This research was supported by grant No. R03 MH44065-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health. The financial assistance of the Institute for Research Development of the Human Sciences Research Council is also acknowledged. This article was written while the first author was a postdoctoral fellow in Clinical Services Research, NIMH grant No. 5T32MH17184-06.     

A comparison of actuarial methods for identifying repetitively violent patients with mental Illnesses

This is a progress report on the development of practical methods for the actuarial prediction of violence. The literature indicates that actuarial prediction is more accurate than clinical prediction, but in practice actuarial methods seem to be used rarely. Here we address two obstacles to the clinical use of actuarial prediction methods. First, clinicians may be averse to actuarial methods that require calculations. To remedy this, we developed a regression tree screen that presents actuarial information about violence in a series of yes/no questions. Second, using actuarial methods to identify the small minority of violent patients in a general psychiatric population may be too costly. To remedy this, we developed a method to prescreen patients for intensive evaluation using an inexpensive assessment. We evaluated regression trees and two-stage screening by comparing their accuracies against conventional actuarial methods. The results showed that actuarial predictions based on regression trees and two-stage screens were as accurate as regression-based methods in identifying repetitively violent patients. These easier-to-use methods may therefore be useful techniques for actuarial predictions.     

An axiomated family of power indices for simple n-person games

In this probabilistic generalization of the Deegan-Packel power index, a new family of power indices based on the notions of minimal winning coalitions and equal division of pay offs is developed. The family of indices is parameterized by allowing minimal winning coalitions to form in accordance with varying probability functions. These indices are axiomatically characterized and compared to other similarly characterized indices. Additionally, a dual family of minimal blocking coalition indices and their characterization axioms is presented.     

Doing time: A qualitative study of long-term incarceration and the impact of mental illness

Once convicted, the perpetrator of serious crime embarks upon a new journey: the challenge of adjusting to long-term imprisonment. Prisoners' views of incarceration and the meaning of this experience may affect their later adjustment to life in the community. On the basis of brief narrative responses collected during an epidemiological survey of the psychological health of prisoners in France, this study examined the impact of incarceration on psychological state in a group of 59 inmates serving long sentences. Qualitative content analysis and computer-assisted linguistic analysis (using ALCESTE software) were performed on the textual data of open responses to three standard questions. Using a combination of these two approaches, seven categories of the subjective experience of prisoners in the sample were identified: the Outside World, Others, Punishment, Time, Affects and Impulses, Self-Concept, and Speech. Further qualitative analyses were then performed to compare the responses of Severely Mentally Ill (SMI) subjects and subjects with no psychiatric disorder. These analyses revealed contrasting attitudes towards incarceration. SMI subjects spoke in more hostile and persecutory terms about their experience in prison, attributing suffering to external circumstances, while subjects with no psychiatric disorder evoked similar themes, but with an introspective attitude. The themes evoked by mentally ill individuals in our sample suggest that their reactions to the prison environment arise in part from aspects of their psychiatric symptoms, and this may have relevance to future mental health policy and practices in criminal corrections.