Distinguished Assistant Professor Award for Research
2006-2007

Professor Jennifer L. Skeem
Department of Psychology and Social Behavior

My research is designed to inform clinical and legal decision-making about individuals with mental disorder.  In particular, I focus on individuals with serious mental disorder, substance abuse problems, and “dramatic and erratic” personality characteristics.  These individuals are at high risk for violence and entanglement in the criminal justice system.  They often are treatment resistant and required to accept psychiatric treatment, whether they want it or not.  My research focuses on identifying these individuals (Who is at risk?), understanding why they become involved in violence and crime (What is the problem?), and informing efforts to reduce their risk and facilitate their exit from the criminal justice system (How should we intervene?).  The results of this research have challenged basic assumptions about the nature of the problem.  This is crucial, given that the way you understand a problem determines how (and whether) you fix it.  

When I began my doctoral work in clinical psychology at the University of Utah, I planned to become a forensic psychologist.  I enjoyed clinical training, work on the forensic unit of the state hospital, and courses at the law school.  As I developed a love for research, my emphasis shifted from assessing and treating mentally disordered offenders to understanding why they became involved in violent and criminal behavior.  After earning my Ph.D. in 1999, I completed a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship in Psychiatry and Law at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).  There, I began studying how to quickly identify the small group of patients who are at risk for repeated involvement in violence and target their changeable risk factors in treatment. 

I also began studying psychopathy, a personality disorder uniquely characterized by emotional detachment, fearlessness, egocentricity, and a dominant and deceitful interpersonal style.  Most interest in psychopathy revolves around the utility of psychopathy measuresin forecasting violent and antisocial behaviour and poor treatment response.  These measures are being used to inform such decisions as whether a patient should receive treatment, whether a juvenile should be transferred to adult court, and whether a convicted offender should be sentenced to death. My work challenges assumptions about (a) what psychopathy is and how measures of psychopathy relate to violence, (b) whether it is appropriate to extend measures of psychopathy to youth and African Americans, and (c) whether psychopathy can be treated.  In several studies, I have found that those with psychopathic traits should be reframed as high risk cases in need of intensive treatment to reduce their risk, rather than hopeless cases in need of permanent incapacitation.

Over recent years, my students and I have been identifying factors that influence outcomes for probationers who are required to participate in psychiatric treatment. Serious mental disorder is more than four times more prevalent in criminal justice populations than the general population, and probation is (by far) the most common criminal disposition. Relative to their healthy counterparts, probationers with mental disorder are twice as likely to fail on probation. We study factors that deepen these individuals’ involvement in the criminal justice system to inform efforts to facilitate their re-entry to the community. This research is funded by the MacArthur Research Network on Mandated Community Treatment, a prestigious group of scholars, practitioners, and policy makers that I have been honored to belong to over the past six years.  In 2001, I accepted a faculty position at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.  In 2003, I received the Saleem Shah Award for Early Career Excellence from the American Psychological Association (Division 41) and American Academy of Forensic Psychology.  I joined the vibrant Department of Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California, Irvine in 2004, where I am now an Associate Professor.