Karen Franklin, Ph.D.
Karen Franklin, Ph.D. is a forensic psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area and an instructor at the California School of Professional Psychology (Alliant International University). Her peer-reviewed publications have appeared in the American Behavioral Scientist, the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, the Encyclopedia of Violence, the Encyclopedia of Criminology, the Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, and other venues. She is a former criminal investigator and legal affairs newspaper reporter. Her blog, "In the News: Forensic Psychology, Criminology, and Psychology-Law," is available here.
Articles by Karen Franklin, Ph.D.
October 19, 2009
A forensic psychologist deconstructs the alarmist rhetoric surrounding the recent escape of Phillip Paul from a Washington state hospital, and corrects misinformation about the insanity defense more broadly.
October 14, 2008
More and more Americans are taking psychiatric medications. The American Psychiatric Association shapes this process, through its monumentally influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) that lists the criteria for which moods and behaviors qualify as diagnosable mental disorders. As the APA prepares to launch its latest revision of the DSM, controversy is mounting over pharmaceutical industry influence and the secrecy surrounding the revision process.
January 11, 2008
The uproar over Phillip McGraw's intrusive interaction with Britney Spears raises a number of interesting issues about clinical psychology and the privacy rights of hospital patients.
As most of you know by now, McGraw barged into Spears' hospital room January 5, apparently without an invitation ...
December 12, 2007
Stop a random passerby and ask what "hebephilia" means, and you´ll get a blank stare.
A few years ago, you would have gotten the same blank look from a forensic psychologist. Even from many who did risk assessments of sex offenders.
Not anymore. The obscure Greek word is gaining in popularit...
December 12, 2007
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a ruling with implications for forensic psychology, treatment in correctional settings, group therapy, psychotherapist-patient confidentiality, and correctional ethics more broadly.
The case goes way back to 1984, when 13-year-old Christy Ann Fornoff w...
December 12, 2007
A psychologist in North Dakota who conducted sex offender evaluations for the state has resigned over a self-admitted child pornography compulsion. Joseph Belanger had run the state's Sexually Dangerous Individual (SDI) civil commitment program. In that capacity, he evaluated sex offenders and testi...
September 13, 2007
In a landmark study released yesterday, the largest human rights organization in the United States is calling for a dramatic reversal of sex offender policies.
Cataloging the far-reaching damage being done under the guise of protecting children, the 146-page report by Human Rights Watch urges an ...
September 11, 2007
In what could be a blow to the 12-Step Movement's stranglehold over substance abuse treatment, an appellate court has ruled that a parolee cannot be ordered into a treatment program that uses the model.
At least eight other federal and state courts have issued similar opinions in the past, holdin...
August 30, 2007
A couple of years ago, while dining in San Quentin's cafeteria, I found myself surrounded by the most amazing, multifaceted murals I have ever seen. Painted in muted sepia tones, they ranged from pastoral scenes of California history to surrealist chaos. No matter where I stood in the cavernous hall...
August 13, 2007
Does lurking racism affect the workings of our major institutions - government, the judiciary, medicine, and education? And how, if it is underground, can we even answer this question with anything more than speculation and opinion?
Where there's a will, there's a way.
Psychological scientis...
August 12, 2007
Those of you who grew up here in the San Francisco Bay Area may remember the corny old radio ad for the Winchester Mystery House. “Keeeeeep buillllllding,” a spooky female voice moaned. According to the lore, the owner of the 19th-century mansion kept adding room after bizarre room until, after 38 y...
August 11, 2007
Did you know that when you go to the airport, a "behavior detection officer" might be scanning your face for hostile micro-aggressions?
You haven't t seen anything yet.
The Department of Homeland Security is set to launch Project Hostile Intent (PHI), which will use computers to scan the 400 m...
July 10, 2007
David Ritcheson was a popular 16-year-old at his Houston high school. He played football and was featured in a fashion layout in the school yearbook.
Then, last April, the young Mexican-American made the mistake of attending a party at which racist skinheads were present.
Ostensibly because Ri...
July 09, 2007
Jeffrey Deskovic was 16 when he confessed to raping and murdering a classmate. He spent the next 17 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Now, the District Attorney’s Office has released an independent review of the case that provides a blueprint of what goes wrong in false confession ca...
July 03, 2007
It is illegal to kick someone off a jury because of his or her race. That’s what the Supreme Court ruled back in 1986, in the case of Batson v. Kentucky. But in the real world, proving such a “Batson violation” is next-to impossible.
Now, researchers have validated this difficulty through laborat...
July 03, 2007
Nearly four in 10 gay men and about one in eight lesbians and bisexuals in the United States have been the target of violence or a property crime because of their sexual orientation.
That is according to the most comprehensive study to date, with a randomly selected, nationally representative sam...
June 28, 2007
In a widely awaited ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today that Texas cannot execute schizophrenic killer Scott Panetti.
The highly polarized court sidestepped the controversial issue of the Constitutionality of executing the mentally ill. Rather, the decision barred Panetti's execution b...
June 27, 2007
Are your kids in danger from online Internet predators?
Children do get preyed on, but the reality is far different from the popular perception, according to a panel of leading experts who presented their research to the Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus.
Here are some of...
June 26, 2007
The 2005 remake of “Fun with Dick and Jane” has a scene in which Jim Carrey – reduced to the status of a day laborer outside a Home Depot - is mistaken for a Mexican and deported.
If the scene seemed a bit implausible, it was not. Especially for someone with a Latino surname.
Last month, a dev...
June 26, 2007
Lawsuits by firefighters against siren manufacturers are sounding another type of alarm – over academic experts with an axe to grind.
Siren manufacturers are using research scientists as expert witnesses to defend themselves against thousands of firefighters claiming that sirens damaged their hea...
June 11, 2007
Federal prisoners in New York have filed suit over the sudden disappearance of hundreds of religious texts from the chapel library.
Religious books are being removed from prisons nationwide as part of a 2004 federal directive aimed at quelling the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in prison. The d...
June 11, 2007
Despite mounting evidence that sex offender registries do more harm than good, legislators are now proposing to expand the concept to domestic violence offenders.
A bill introduced into the Pennsylvania legislature would create a Megan’s law-style database of people convicted of domestic violence...
June 11, 2007
Scott Panetti thinks Texas wants to kill him because it is in cahoots with the devil. The devil, he theorizes, wants to stop him from preaching the gospel to his fellow prisoners.
Panetti has a severe mental disorder. He had been hospitalized more than a dozen times before he killed his estranged...
June 11, 2007
Who would have predicted that locking up fewer youths might improve community safety?
With California’s juvenile prisons plagued by violence and scandals, a quiet revolution is taking place on the local level, as more and more counties send their youthful offenders to intensive treatment programs...
June 11, 2007
Following trends in a handful of other states, an appellate court in California has held that developmental immaturity can be a grounds for a finding of incompetency to stand trial.
California law lists only mental illness and developmental disability as grounds for incompetency. But the new ruli...
June 11, 2007
Research on racism has come a long way since the old days of searching for the “racist personality.” In recent years, researchers have focused on the subtle, modern racism that pervades our culture and that perpetrators can plausibly deny.
Individuals who practice this subtle racism may not even ...
June 10, 2007
Might mounting criticisms of NBC's "To Catch a Predator" signal a turning point in the cultural hysteria surrounding “sexual predators”?
Criticism is mounting on multiple fronts against the show, which features vigilantes trolling the Web to lure men into sexual liaisons with children.
On the ...
November 30, 1999
Mock executions, sexual and religious humiliation, dog attacks, induced hypothermia, sleep deprivation, and threats to kill family members.
These are among the controversial government practices that psychologists will no longer be allowed to participate in, under a resolution to be unveiled at n...