This is for teacher ALEINA KIM only

Forensic Psychology Project

Mental Retardation and Death Penalty

Student’s Name

Institution

Date

Research Question

Would death row convicts fake mental retardation to avoid the death penalty, whether sane or insane?

Background Research

An article in the Gainesville news website highlights a psychologist who said that a killer had faked mental retardation. The name of the killer was Couey, and the little 9 year old girl he had dragged from her bedroom, raped and buried alive 150 yards from her home was Jessica Lunsford. Under a Supreme Court ruling in 2002, the execution of mentally retarded people is prohibited (gainsesville editorial team, 2007).

Scott Vollum et al, mention in their book the death penalty that evidence suggests that is it difficult to fake mental retardation because it roots from childhood. They also mention that according to the American Psychiatric Association, four conditions that show malingering include; Medico-legal presentation context where the attorney refers the client for diagnosis, the presence of antisocial behavior, discrepancies in and between person’s apparent disability and the objective findings, and lack of cooperation during a diagnostic evaluation (Vollum, Carmen, Frantzenl, Miguel, & Cheeseman, 2015).

In a journal on inquiries journals, Allison Foerschner mentions that mental health groups assure that it is very difficult to fake the condition of mental retardation since reliable tests are there and a paper trail of academic and mental health records follow a person diagnosed with mental retardation (Foerschner, 2010). A study conducted by Hayes, Shackell, Mottram and Lancaster (2007) indicated that IQ tests in a UK prison varied between 65 and 75 according to the adaptive behavior of the diagnostic criteria during the test (Lindsay & Hastings, 2007). This meant that someone can be wrongly diagnosed by use of an IQ test alone. This warrants us to use more tests on the individual, including a background check on the mental history of the inmates as we conduct our research.

1. Hypothesis

Inmates fear of the ultimate punishment that is death positively correlates to their want to fake mental retardation to stay alive, and also positively correlates to their diagnosed mental state.

1. Variables

This experiment contains 3 variables. These variables are to be presented in a questionnaire as shown in Appendix A. They include fear of death, sanity as per expert analysis and whether someone would fake their mental retardation in the face of a death penalty. The independent variable in this case is the fear of death and the dependent variables include whether or not someone would fake mental retardation to escape the death penalty, and the level of sanity of an individual inmate.

1. Sample and Population

The population of this study is American prison inmates. A sample is taken of 5 inmates from 5 different prisons in the states of Arizona, Florida, North California, Texas and Nevada. This would total 25 inmates among them convicted death row inmates. The inmates would be expected to fill out a questionnaire and undergo a mental retardation checkup by a team of experts in the psychology field to determine their true mental state.

1. Research Design

The best research design in this case is correlational design. This measures the extent to which one parameter is related to another (McLeod, 2007). This inquires the extent to which the fear of death leads to malingering. It also measures the extent to which the fear of death is related to the sanity or insanity of an individual. It answers the questions, do insane people fear death less, and does the fear of death make people lie in the worst ways to keep themselves from being killed. The advantages of correlation studies are that it allows researchers to collect more data, the results are more realistic and applicable, it opens up a further scope of research, and correlational research provides a good aspect of relationship between variables and the strength of the relationship.

1. Data Collection

   1. Methods of data collection

The best data collection for this research are questionnaires. Honest opinions and feedback from the inmates allows us to connect with the inmates who face such fears and those that live with the inmates that do. One way or another, they bring out the best research results when let to answer with discretion and absolute immunity from their responses. Also included is a professional mental state test that involves an IQ test, background check on how the individual behaved before he was 18 years and other psychic tests. The expected result from this is whether or not the individual is mentally retarded or not.

5 inmates from each prison are randomly selected, and presented with the questionnaires. These questionnaires are administered online using google forms. This ensures that we get the feedback immediately and also ensures that the inmates do not feel insecure about the answers they give to the system. The fact that the questionnaires do not go through the prison warden or guards, which they are made aware of, means they can be trusted.

1. 1. Procedure

Our mental retardation and research teams will arrive at each and every prison, with a letter from law enforcement agencies within a state to facilitate the research. This will mean that they will sit with an inmate in a negotiation room. The inmate will be asked simple questions that allow him to relax and open up about his past. Before he answers the questionnaire he will be told of the research, what is needed and if he/ she agrees to be part of the experiment, he will sign a consent letter stating that he understands that, and a binding contract that what we receive from him will remain in discretion. The inmate will then be guided on how to answer the questionnaire on the laptop presented by the team. Once he fills the form and submits it, he will then have a mental test conducted. On completion, the team will send his results together with the form as results.

For environmental conservation practices, the questionnaires used are in soft copy. By use of Google forms, no one apart from the admin can edit the document or the findings the inmate enters into the form apart from the inmate themselves before submitting. Since it is the responsibility of the inmate to submit the questionnaire, tampering is highly unlikely. Also since the team is there with the inmate, there are less chance of tampering with the form.

1. Statistical Analysis

By use of a correlation test, the hypothesis of, “Inmates fear of the ultimate punishment that is death positively correlates to their want to fake mental retardation to stay alive, and also positively correlates to their diagnosed mental state” will be tested and proven.

Foerschner, A. (2010). The Death Penalty and Mental Retardation. Inquiries Journal.

gainsesville editorial team. (2007). Psychologist: Couey faked mental retardation. Retrieved from gainesville news: http://www.gainesville.com/news/20070718/psychologist-couey-faked-mental-retardation

Lindsay, W. R., & Hastings, G. H. (2007). Trends and Challenges in Forensic Research on Offenders with Intellectual Disability. Journal for Intellectual and Developmental disability, 55-61.

McLeod, S. (2007). Research methods. Retrieved from Simple Psychology: https://www.simplypsychology.org/research-methods.html

Vollum, S., Carmen, R. V., Frantzenl, D., Miguel, C. S., & Cheeseman, K. (2015). The Death Penalty: Constitutional Issues, Commentaries, and Case Briefs. New York: Routleg.

Appendix A

Questionnaire Sample

1. Do you fear Death?

II. What are you in prison for?

III. Do you consider yourself Insane or mentally Retarded?

IV. If you were facing Death Row charges, would you fake being retarded evade death row?