Seattle University Collaborative Projects - International Academy of ...

Foolish Homicide in Brain-Impaired Offenders: Impulsivity, Gullibility andUnawareness of RiskStephen Greenspan, University of Colorado (stephen.greenspan@gmail.com)Foolishness involves a failure to anticipate risk of negative consequences. A homicide can bedescribed as foolish when it is out of proportion to provocation (killing someone for making aninsulting comment) or likely gain (a robbery that nets $30); when the offender does notunderstand the degree of risk to the victim (aiming for the shoulder, but severing an artery;causing suffocation from locking someone in a trunk); when the crime is undertaken as a resultof manipulative pressure from another person (believing false accusations about the victim);when the violence is an automatic reaction (without any reflection); when the offender has nounderstanding of how to avoid being apprehended (leaving obvious evidence at the scene of thecrime); or, in many cases, a combination of all of these. People with brain-based disorders have ahigh likelihood of engaging in foolish crime, including homicide, even when their intelligence isrelatively intact. Several actual cases of foolish homicide in brain-impaired offenders will bedescribed, and analyzed in relation to a model of “foolish action” that has four explanatoryfactors: (a) situation (social pressure, threat); (b) cognition (inability to read cues or understandrisk); (c) personality (impulsivity, dependency); and (d) state (anger, fear, inebriation). Thismodel and these cases will be used to propose and illustrate a comprehensive psychologicaltheory of mitigation and culpability.Developing Psychological Informed Criminal Justice Environments IEddie Kane, University of Nottingham (eddie.kane2@btinternet.com)Victoria Baldwin, University of Nottingham (Victoria.baldwin@nottshc.nhs.uk)Over the past 3 years there has been a significant political focus in the United Kingdom onindividuals with mental disorders who are detained within the Justice system. This has led to aseries of policy responses that have been developed in order to address the needs of theseindividuals. In 2011 six psychologically informed planned environments (PIPES) wereintroduced in the UK Justice system. These pilot schemes were designed to offer staff additionaltraining to help them develop a more psychologically based understanding of their work. Thisunderstanding enables them to create a safe and supportive environment that can facilitate thedevelopment of those who live there. PIPES are designed to have a particular focus on theenvironment in which they operate, actively recognising the importance and the quality ofrelationships and interactions. They aim to maximise ordinary situations and approach them in apsychologically informed way. PIPES look at the social context and interactions of theindividuals who live and work there and stress the importance of the relationships whichunderpin daily living in what are often pressured environments housing individuals who havelived a life of exclusion from these common interactions. Of the six pilots four were developed188