Forging a New Practice Area: Social Work's Role in Death Penalty Mitigation Investigations

2003 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Neurological Disorders ◽  
Clinical Skills ◽  
The United States ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Sentencing Decisions ◽  
Yield Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
Penalty Phase

The death penalty remains alive and well in the United States. Courts in 37 states try defendants who are oftentimes mentally retarded, mentally ill, or suffer from neurological disorders. Social workers are using their skills and expertise to lead mitigation investigations where disability, discrimination, and deprivation in defendant's lives are being woven into the fabric of the penalty phase process. Mitigation investigations yield information about a defendant's life that is then empirically linked with factors identified in the social science literature and presented to juries to guide their focus in making sentencing decisions. Advanced clinical skills and an ecological theoretical approach to interpreting the biopsychosocial realities of the defendant's life are proving to be vital components of capital litigation.

27. Immigration and other evils: A profile of Dr. C. K. Clarke and the eugenics movement in Canada

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
L. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Mentally Ill ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cornell University ◽  
The Public ◽  
Canadian Population ◽  
Historical Figures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Eugenics Movement ◽  
The Government ◽  
Mental Defectives

Dr. C.K. Clarke (1857-1924) was one of Canada’s most prominent psychiatrists. He sought to improve the conditions of asylums, helped to legitimize psychiatry and established formal training for nurses. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Canada experienced a surge of immigration. Yet – as many historians have shown – a widespread anti-foreigner sentiment within the public remained. Along with many other members of the fledgling eugenics movement, Clarke believed that the proportion of “mental defectives” was higher in the immigrant population than in the Canadian population and campaigned to restrict immigration. He appealed to the government to track immigrants and deport them once they showed signs of mental illness. Clarke’s efforts lead to amendments to the Immigration Act in 1919, which authorized deportation of people who were not Canadian-born, regardless of how many years that had been in Canada. This change applied not only to the mentally ill but also to those who could no longer work due to injury and to those who did not follow social norms. Clarke is a fascinating example of how we judge historical figures. He lived in a time where what we now think of as xenophobia was a socially acceptable, even worthy attitude. As a leader in eugenics, therefore, he was a progressive. Other biographers have recognized Clarke’s racist opinions, some of whom justify them as keeping with the social values of his era. In further exploring Clarke’s interest in these issues, this paper relies on his personal scrapbooks held in the CAMH archives. These documents contain personal papers, poems and stories that proclaim his anti-Semitic and anti-foreigner views. Whether we allow his involvement in the eugenics movement to overshadow his accomplishments or ignore his racist leanings to celebrate his memory is the subject of ongoing debate. Dowbiggin IR. Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada 1880-1940. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997. McLaren A. Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada 1885-1945. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1990. Roberts B. Whence They Came: Deportation from Canada 1900-1935. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1988.

Toward a Critical Refugee Study: The Vietnamese Refugee Subject in US Scholarship

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 410-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yêên Lêê Espiritu
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Vietnamese Americans ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Vietnamese American ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Science Literature ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Vietnamese Studies ◽  
Vietnamese Refugee

This review of the field of Vietnamese refugee studies in the United States first assesses the social science literature that dominated Vietnamese studies during the 1970s and 1980s, showing how this scholarship produces Vietnamese Americans as the desperate-turned-successful. Then it reviews the current range of Vietnamese American scholarship, foregrounding the promising studies that situate the diversity and vibrancy of Vietnamese lives within a critical global context. The paper concludes by suggesting that we imbue the term "refugee" with social and political critiques that call into question the relationship between war, race, and violence, then and now.

Death Penalty Disposition in China: What Matters?

2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 253-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yudu Li ◽  
Dennis Longmire ◽  
Hong Lu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Sentencing Decisions ◽  
Significant Relationships ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
Using Data

In theory, sentencing decisions should be driven by legal factors, not extra-legal factors. However, some empirical research on the death penalty in the United States shows significant relationships between offender and victim characteristics and death sentence decisions. Despite the fact that China frequently imposes death sentences, few studies have examined these sanctions to see if similar correlations occur in China’s capital cases. Using data from published court cases in China involving three violent crimes—homicide, robbery, and intentional assault—this study examines the net impact of offender’s gender, race, and victim–offender relationship on death sentence decisions in China. Our overall multiple regression results indicate that, after controlling for other legal and extra-legal variables, an offender’s gender, race, and victim–offender relationship did not produce similar results in China when compared with those in the United States. In contrast, it is the legal factors that played the most significant role in influencing the death penalty decisions. The article concludes with explanations and speculations on the unique social, cultural, and legal conditions in China that may have contributed to these correlations.

scholarly journals An Argument for the Admissibility of Execution Impact Evidence in Pennsylvania

2005 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paige H. Forster
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Capital Trials ◽  
Eighth Amendment ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Penalty Phase

In 1991, the United States Supreme Court made a significant change to sentencing proceedings during capital trials. The Court ruled in Payne v. Tennessee that the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit “victim impact evidence,” testimony about the character of the murder victim and the impact of the death on the victim’s family. The Payne decision permits highly emotional testimony from family members to enter into the penalty phase of a death penalty trial.

scholarly journals Domestic Violence Perpetrator Programs: A Proposal for Evidence-Based Standards in the United States

Partner Abuse ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Babcock ◽  
Nicholas Armenti ◽  
Clare Cannon ◽  
Katie Lauve-Moon ◽  
Fred Buttell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
System Response ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Assessment Protocol ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practitioner Education

In the United States, the judicial system response to violence between intimate partners, or intimate partner violence (IPV), typically mandates that adjudicated perpetrators complete a batterer intervention program (BIP). The social science data has found that these programs, on the whole, are only minimally effective in reducing rates of IPV. The authors examined the social science literature on the characteristics and efficacy of BIPs. More than 400 studies were considered, including a sweeping, recently conducted survey of BIP directors across the United States and Canada. Results of this review indicate that the limitations of BIPs are due, in large part, to the limitations of current state standards regulating these programs and, furthermore, that these standards are not grounded in the body of empirical research evidence or best practices. The authors, all of whom have considerable expertise in the area of domestic violence perpetrator treatment, conducted an exhaustive investigation of the following key intervention areas: overall effectiveness of BIPs; length of treatment/length of group sessions; number of group participants and number of facilitators; group format and curriculum; assessment protocol and instruments; victim contact; modality of treatment; differential treatment; working with female perpetrators; working with perpetrators in racial and ethnic minority groups; working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) perpetrators; perpetrator treatment and practitioner–client relationships; and required practitioner education and training. Recommendations for evidence-based national BIP standards were made based on findings from this review.

Gender Difference in Living Apart Together

2020 ◽  
pp. 52-77
Author(s):  
Cynthia Grant Bowman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Gender Differences ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
The United States ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Work Lives ◽  
Raising Children ◽  
Living Apart Together ◽  
The Social ◽  
Supportive Relationship

This chapter focuses on the attraction of a LAT lifestyle for women, in part based on indications from the social science literature from outside the United States and in part drawing on my interviews of women LATs in the United States and England. There are gender differences in living apart. LAT allows women to maintain their independence without forgoing the benefits of intimate relationships. For some women, who are intensely involved in their work lives, raising children from a previous marriage, or both, LAT offers a way to have a physically and emotionally supportive relationship when cohabitation or marriage would be difficult.

scholarly journals Social, psychological, and demographic characteristics of dehumanization toward immigrants

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (17) ◽  
pp. 9260-9269 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Markowitz ◽  
Paul Slovic
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
The Social ◽  
Demographic Correlates ◽  
Southern Border ◽  
Explained Variance

This study extends the current body of work on dehumanization by evaluating the social, psychological, and demographic correlates of blatant disregard for immigrants. Participants (n = 468) were randomly assigned to read a scenario where 1) an immigrant or 2) an immigrant and their child were caught illegally crossing the southern border of the United States, and then rated how long they should spend in jail if convicted. Participants reported that they would sentence the immigrant to more jail time than the immigrant and child. Those who sent immigrants to jail for more time also viewed them as socially distant and less human, described immigration in impersonal terms, and endorsed other social harms unrelated to immigration (e.g., the death penalty for convicted murderers). Crucially, endorsed social harms accounted for explained variance beyond simply holding conservative views. We position these data within the current literature on dehumanization theory and immigration issues.

Social, Psychological, and Demographic Characteristics of Dehumanization: The Case of Immigration

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Matthew Markowitz ◽  
Paul Slovic
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
The Social ◽  
Demographic Correlates ◽  
Southern Border ◽  
Explained Variance

This study extends the current body of work on dehumanization by evaluating the social, psychological, and demographic correlates of blatant disregard for immigrants. Participants (N = 468) were randomly assigned to read a scenario where (1) an immigrant or (2) an immigrant and their child were caught illegally crossing the southern border of the United States, and then rated how long they should spend in jail if convicted. Participants reported that they would sentence the immigrant to more jail time than the immigrant and child. Those who sent immigrants to jail for more time also viewed them as socially distant, less human, described immigration in impersonal terms, and endorsed other social harms unrelated to immigration (e.g., the death penalty for convicted murderers). Crucially, endorsed social harms accounted for explained variance beyond simply holding conservative views. We position these data within the current literature on dehumanization theory and immigration issues.

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