Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Prison Sentence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prison Sentence. Show all posts

Sunday, February 19, 2023

Organs in exchange for freedom? Bill raises ethical concerns

Steve LeBlanc
Associated Press
Originally published 8 FEB 23

BOSTON (AP) — A proposal to let Massachusetts prisoners donate organs and bone marrow to shave time off their sentence is raising profound ethical and legal questions about putting undue pressure on inmates desperate for freedom.

The bill — which faces a steep climb in the Massachusetts Statehouse — may run afoul of federal law, which bars the sale of human organs or acquiring one for “valuable consideration.”

It also raises questions about whether and how prisons would be able to appropriately care for the health of inmates who go under the knife to give up organs. Critics are calling the idea coercive and dehumanizing even as one of the bill’s sponsors is framing the measure as a response to the over-incarceration of Hispanic and Black people and the need for matching donors in those communities.

“The bill reads like something from a dystopian novel,” said Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a Washington, D.C.-based criminal justice reform advocacy group. “Promoting organ donation is good. Reducing excessive prison terms is also good. Tying the two together is perverse.”

(cut)

Offering reduced sentences in exchange for organs is not only unethical, but also violates federal law, according to George Annas, director of the Center for Health Law, Ethics & Human Rights at the Boston University School of Public Health. Reducing a prison sentence is the equivalent of a payment, he said.

“You can’t buy an organ. That should end the discussion,” Annas said. “It’s compensation for services. We don’t exploit prisoners enough?”

Democratic state Rep. Carlos Gonzalez, another co-sponsor of the bill, defended the proposal, calling it a voluntary program. He also said he’s open to establishing a policy that would allow inmates to donate organs and bone marrow without the lure of a reduced sentence. There is currently no law against prisoner organ donation in Massachusetts, he said.

“It’s not quid pro quo. We are open to setting policy without incentives,” Gonzalez said, adding that it is “crucial to respect prisoners’ human dignity and agency by respecting their choice to donate bone marrow or an organ.”

Monday, January 19, 2015

Belgian rapist Frank Van Den Bleeken 'to be euthanised' in prison this week

By Roisin O'Connor
The Independent
Originally posted January 5, 2015

A convicted murderer and rapist who won the right to end his life rather than endure 'unbearable suffering' in prison will be euthanised on 11 January.

Granted the right to die under Belgium’s liberal euthanasia laws in September, Frank Van Den Bleeken claimed he could not face the rest of his life in jail and argued that he would never be able to overcome his violent sexual impulses.

The entire article is here.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

U.S. Should Significantly Reduce Rate of Incarceration

Unprecedented Rise in Prison Population ‘Not Serving the Country Well,’ Says New Report

Press Release from the National Academy of Sciences
Released April 30, 2014

Given the minimal impact of long prison sentences on crime prevention and the negative social consequences and burdensome financial costs of U.S. incarceration rates, which have more than quadrupled in the last four decades, the nation should revise current criminal justice policies to significantly reduce imprisonment rates, says a new report from the National Research Council.

A comprehensive review of data led the committee that wrote the report to conclude that the costs of the current rate of incarceration outweigh the benefits.  The committee recommended that federal and state policymakers re-examine policies requiring mandatory and long sentences, as well as take steps to improve prison conditions and to reduce unnecessary harm to the families and communities of those incarcerated.  In addition, it recommended a reconsideration of drug crime policy, given the apparently low effectiveness of a heightened enforcement strategy that resulted in a tenfold increase in the incarceration rate for drug offenses from 1980 to 2010 — twice the rate for other crimes.

“We are concerned that the United States is past the point where the number of people in prison can be justified by social benefits,” said committee chair Jeremy Travis, president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.  “We need to embark on a national conversation to rethink the role of prison in society.  A criminal justice system that makes less use of incarceration can better achieve its aims than a harsher, more punitive system. There are common-sense, practical steps we can take to move in this direction.”

The rest of the press release is here.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Psychopaths Get A Break From Biology: Judges Reduce Sentences If Genetics, Neurobiology Are Blamed

Medical News Today
Originally published August 21, 2012

A University of Utah survey of judges in 19 states found that if a convicted criminal is a psychopath, judges consider it an aggravating factor in sentencing, but if judges also hear biological explanations for the disorder, they reduce the sentence by about a year on average.

The new study, published in the Aug. 17, 2012, issue of the journal Science, illustrates the "double-edged sword" faced by judges when they are given a "biomechanical" explanation for a criminal's mental disorder:

If a criminal's behavior has a biological basis, is that reason to reduce the sentence because defective genes or brain function leave the criminal with less self-control and ability to tell right from wrong? Or is it reason for a harsher sentence because the criminal likely will reoffend?

"In a nationwide sample of judges, we found that expert testimony concerning the biological causes of psychopathy significantly reduced sentencing of the psychopath" from almost 14 years to less than 13 years, says study coauthor James Tabery, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Utah.

However, the hypothetical psychopath in the study got a longer sentence than the average nine-year sentence judges usually impose for the same crime - aggravated battery - and there were state-to-state differences in whether judges reduced or increased the sentence when given information on the biological causes of psychopathy.

The entire story is here.

Abstract

We tested whether expert testimony concerning a biomechanism of psychopathy increases or decreases punishment. In a nationwide experiment, U.S. state trial judges (N = 181) read a hypothetical case (based on an actual case) where the convict was diagnosed with psychopathy. Evidence presented at sentencing in support of a biomechanical cause of the convict's psychopathy significantly reduced the extent to which psychopathy was rated as aggravating and significantly reduced sentencing (from 13.93 years to 12.83 years). Content analysis of judges' reasoning indicated that even though the majority of judges listed aggravating factors (86.7%), the biomechanical evidence increased the proportion of judges listing mitigating factors (from 29.7 to 47.8%). Our results contribute to the literature on how biological explanations of behavior figure into theories of culpability and punishment.


Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Two South Florida doctors, 3 others convicted on Medicare fraud charges

A Miami federal jury convicted five people of Medicare-related fraud in a case involving the nation’s biggest mental-health racket.


By Jay Weaver
The Miami Herald
Originally published on June 1, 2012

Two South Florida doctors stared in disbelief — then teared up as they turned to relatives for comfort — after a federal jury found them guilty Friday of conspiring to defraud Medicare through the nation’s biggest mental-health racket.

The 12-person Miami jury convicted psychiatrists Mark Willner of Weston and Alberto Ayala of Coral Gables, the medical directors for American Therapeutic Corp., for their roles in a $205 million scheme to fleece the taxpayer-funded program for the elderly and disabled. The jurors found them not guilty on other healthcare fraud offenses.

In addition, the jury convicted Vanja Abreu, Ph.D, program director for American Therapeutic in Miami-Dade, of the same healthcare-fraud conspiracy offense, and two other defendants, Hilario Morris and Curtis Gates, of paying kickbacks to residential home operators in exchange for providing patients.

The entire story is here.

Thanks to Steve Ragusea for this story.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Judge: Killer Faked Insanity for Decades

By Elaine Silverstrini
The Tampa Tribune

More than 30 years after Carlos Bello murdered a Tampa police detective and wounded another, a judge concluded he is faking mental illness and is competent to be resentenced.

As soon as Circuit Judge Ronald Ficarrotta announced his ruling Friday, several Tampa police officers in his courtroom took out phones and began sending text messages.

Among those present was Detective Greg Stout, president of the Tampa Police Benevolent Association, who immediately after the hearing said he was sure word had spread through the department. The reaction, he said, was "jubilation."

Bello, 58, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1987 for killing Detective Gerald Rauft and shooting Detective Robert Ulriksen during a drug raid at an Ybor City home in 1981. But his sentence was overturned by the Florida Supreme Court, and Bello began years of evaluations for mental competency.

"This defendant has played the system like no one has ever played the system before," Assistant State Attorney Darrell Dirks told Ficarrotta. "He had one judge tell him in 1987 he is going to be sentenced to death. This defendant has made it his purpose that that is never ever going to happen to him. … He has done a great job. I'll give him kudos. He is a great manipulator."

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Psychologist gets jail time for sex with patient


By Bruce Vielmetti
The Journal Sentinel

An Oak Creek psychologist convicted of starting a sexual relationship with a longtime patient in 2005 was sentenced Thursday to a year in jail.

Dr. Adamczak
Jeffrey Adamczak, 48, faced up to 7 1/2 years for sexual exploitation by a therapist.

But Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Jacob Manian said the state wasn't seeking prison, just accountability.

"This case has always been about protecting patients," Manian told Circuit Judge Rebecca Dallet.

Adamczak made a public apology to his wife for the affair and the public spectacle. He said it never should have happened and he'd never forgive himself.

"I'm truly paying the price for infidelity," he said.

Dallet corrected Adamczak, saying she wasn't sentencing him for having an affair, but for abusing the trust patients put in their psychotherapists.

"You took advantage of that relationship, used it and turned it around into a sexual relationship," she said. "That's the serious part."

The whole story can be found here.

Stories related to Dr. Adamczak can be found here.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Psychologist found guilty of sexual relationship with patient

By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel
Published September 2, 2011
An Oak Creek psychologist was found guilty Friday of starting a sexual relationship with a longtime patient in 2005.
Jeffrey Adamczak, 48, faces up to 71/2 years in prison for sexual exploitation by a therapist at his sentencing Oct. 13. Jurors deliberated about two hours before reaching the verdict after a weeklong trial.
Adamczak was charged in August 2010. The victim, with whom he carried on a yearlong affair before she broke it off in 2006, reported Adamczak to authorities in March 2010 after she became convinced that he was again having sexual contact with patients.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Rebecca Dallet directed that the woman not be named in news reports.
A second former patient also testified that Adamczak had sexual contact with her in 2004, and two other former patients described what they considered inappropriate sexual comments from him during therapy. Adamczak flatly denied those allegations.
His attorney, Gerald Boyle, told jurors in closing arguments that jealousy drove the woman to destroy Adamczak, and said his client's testimony and office records showed the affair didn't start until after he had closed the woman's file, ending the therapist relationship.
The woman, a 40-year-old physical therapist, had been in near weekly counseling with Adamczak for about three years when he initiated sexual contact with her at a session in February 2005, after she told him she had filed for divorce from her husband.

Timing questioned

At trial, both parties testified about a memorable tryst at a Milwaukee hotel suite, replete with candles, special music and rose petals scattered near the whirlpool tub.
But when she was interviewed earlier by police, the woman said she couldn't recall the exact date, or the hotel where she and Adamczak had the experience they referred to as "Paris."
And that, his attorney argued to jurors Friday, was a big red flag on her credibility.
"If she can't remember "Paris,' " Boyle said, jurors shouldn't believe her testimony about exactly when she first had sex with Adamczak.
The timing of the first encounters was a key question for jurors. The woman testified it was in February 2005, just after she had filed for divorce, and that her therapist initiated three sexual episodes before finally telling her she could no longer be his patient "on paper."
Adamczak testified she came on to him, in late March 2005, several weeks after he had determined she no longer needed counseling and closed her file.
The entire story can be found here.