Violent recidivism in criminal psychopaths

The predictive validity of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) was compared with 3 actuarial risk scales in a sample of 81 offenders followed for a maximum of 67 months (average of 30 months). The recommittal or general recidivism rate for the entire sample was 57% (40% for nonpsychopaths, 51.2% for a mixed group, and 85% for psychopaths). The violent reoffense rate was 10% for the sample (nonpsychopaths 0%, mixed 7.3%, psychopaths 25%). All instruments were significantly correlated with general recidivism; however, the PCL-R was the best predictor of violent recidivism. Compared to the actuarial scales, the PCL-R had a higher predictive efficiency (Relative Improvement Over Chance (RIOC)) and yielded fewer decision errors. Most importantly, Factor 1 was a better predictor of violent recidivism than Factor 2, suggesting that the trait construct of psychopathy makes a unique contribution to the prediction of violent recidivism.     

State criminality and the “new” world order

B.A., Bowdoin College 1976; J.D., Harvard University 1980. I acknowledge with gratitude the assistance of Joni Charme, Adam Greenstone, and Bill Graves.     

Does the American experience with alcohol prohibition generalize to marijuana?

It is common to compare contemporary legal prohibitions against drugs with the prohibition against alcohol in the 1930s. Making this analogy presumes similarities between the two prohibitions which have policy implicatioas for the current legal response to drugs. This study focuses on one drug, marijuana. Moonshiners of the 1930s are compared with contemporary domestic marijuana cultivators, the effects of alcohol prohibition are compared with the effects of prohibiting marijuana, and issues relevant to current marijuana policies are examined.     

The meaning of party labels

To determine the meaning(s) of the concepts Republican, Democrat, and Independent, the most frequently cited attributes of each party label were scaled in terms of their semantic centrality. An analysis of the magnitude scale values demonstrates that the labels Republican and Democrat have unique cognitive properties which easily discriminate one label from another. The most characteristic and discriminating properties refer to (1) voting, (2) electioneering, and (3) other forms of electoral behavior. Although these two labels have many strong properties over which there is considerable agreement, such consensus is lacking for the fewer and weaker properties which characterize and discriminate the label Independent. Whereas Republican and Democrat are sharply delineated, semantic inversions of one another, the concept Independent is ambiguously defined and only weakly distinguishable from other concepts.