Nathaniel J. Pallone

To Punish or to Treat: Substance Abuse within the Context of Oscillating Attitudes toward Correctional Rehabilitation.

Abstract Although its remote origins can be traced to the end of prohibition with the repeal of the Volstead Act in 1933, the nations “war on drugs” gathered massive strength in the early days of the Reagan administration. During the 1980s and 1990s, the decision of the nation, expressed through its legislators, seemed to be to “criminalize” drug use or abuse through imposition of harsh penalties for what had earlier been statutorily defined as relatively minor offenses and by eliminating judicial discretion in sentencing, so that mandatory incarceration was required for many offenses. Yet by 2000, the voters of California, the Governor and criminal court judges of New York, and even the nations “drug czar” had decided that they would rather, as described by the New York Times, “treat than fight.” This paper situates that sea change in posture within a context of oscillation toward the goals of corrections generally during an era in which “therapeutic nihilism” and “just deserts” appeared to have carried the day.

Blacks and Whites as Victims and Offenders in Aggressive Crime in the U.S.

Abstract This paper analyzes data on the annual incidence of aggressive crime (homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault) in relation to race, contrasting proportional distribution of Blacks and whites among victims and offenders in relation to their representation in the general U.S. population. Blacks are over-represented among offenders in each category of aggressive crime: in homicide at a level 315% greater than their representation in the general population, in sexual assault at a level 404% as great, in aggravated assault at 274% greater than their representation in the general population. Whites and “others” are under-represented among offenders. Blacks are at highly increased risk, relative to their representation in the nations population, for victimization in homicide and at some disadvantage (although not at a level appropriately denominated as risk in a statistical sense) for victimization in both sexual and aggravated assault. Episodes of criminal aggression initiated by white offenders account for slightly more than 73% of all single-offender episodes of aggressive crime, while episodes initiated by Black offenders account for approximately 27%, so that white-perpetrated criminal aggression exceeds Black-initiated criminal aggression at a ratio of 2.7:1. Blacks are represented among offenders in aggressive crime slightly more than twice their representation in the nations population. It is more than five times as likely that a white victim has been set upon by a white offender than by a Black offender and nearly seven times as likely that a Black victim has been set upon by a Black offender as by a white offender. It is 32 times as likely that a white offender will victimize another white as it is that he or she will victimize a Black. But Black offenders victimize whites as frequently as they victimize other Blacks. When gender and age are considered interactively with race, it is seen that Black males in adolescence and adulthood are at astronomically enhanced risk both for homicide offending and for victimization in homicide, such that Black males aged 18-24 are at a risk level for offending nearly 28 times greater and for victimization nearly 17 times greater than their representation in the national population. Data on divergence in “choice” of victim by Black offenders not inflected by age and on the astronomical risk for homicide offending by young Black men likely anchor a phenomenology of fear among whites.

Neuropathology and Criminal Violence -- Newly Calibrated Ratios

Abstract In connection with the development of their “tinder-box” model for the analysis of criminal aggression, the authors have maintained a “running count” of empirical studies published in the past 40 years that have examined violent criminal offenders for the presence or absence of brain dysfunction. In various publications, we have reported on the ratios between the relative incidence of neuropathology among offenders arrayed by type of violent crime and the overall incidence in the general population. In Spring 1999, the Federal Centers for Disease Control put the incidence in the general population at “slightly more than 2%.” With the CDC figure as a base rate, the relative ratios for neuropathology among violent offenders range from highs of 47:1 for homicide offenders and 48:1 offenders; through midrange levels of 43:1 for juvenile offenders, 39:1 for assault offenders, and 33:1 for incest offenders; to lows of 6:1 for “one-time aggressives.” Implications are drawn for standards of criminal culpability.

Editor's Notebook: Studies of Women Offenders in Treatment and in Transition

Abstract This introduction briefly outlines the context for this special issue by reviewing data on women offenders over the several decades within the framework set forth by eminent criminologist Freda Adler in her master-work Sisters in Crime, published nearly 30 years ago.

PSYCHOBIOLOGY AND CRIMINAL AGGRESSION

This brief paper serves as an introduction to the contributions in this volume, each by distinguished researchers in psychobiology and/or neuropsychiatly, on the psychobiological engines of aggression, the measurement of psychobiogenic aggression, and the psychopharmacological control of aggression. Together these papers comprise a portrait of the present state of the science both in understanding and in controlling psychobiogenic aggression.

Luther's Call and Nitrogen Narcosis

During 1505–1506, Martin Luther, then vacillating about a “call” to the religious life and/or the priesthood, underwent spiritual revelations during thunderstorms. This paper proposes that, in addition to theological and psychopathological interpretations, a neurochemical interpretation suggests itself, since severe thunderstorms trigger the rapid release of nitrogen into the atmosphere, producing in some people a condition termed “nitrogen narcosis,” clinically akin to acute alcoholic intoxication.