Psy3230 The Role Of The Forensic Psychologist

Front 1

What are 6 main roles of a forensic psychologist?

Back 1

1. psychological assessments for the courts 2. Conduct Risk assessments 3. Offender Treatment 4. Provide legal evidence and expert testimony 5. Criminal Investigative Analysis 6. Research and evaluation

Front 2

What is the predominent reasons referrals are made for psychological assessments for court?

Back 2

usually because the court perceives something unique or troubling about the offender and wants further information

Front 3

Referrals for a psychological assessment for the court are made for what two main reasons?

Back 3

assess fitness for trial or following a guilty verdict or plea to inform sentencing

Front 4

What are the four main purposes of sentencing?

Back 4

1. Retribution 2. Deterrence (specific and general) 3. Incapacitation 4. Rehabilitation

Front 5

What are three reasons for a pre-sentence referral?

Back 5

to provide further information about factors that make offending difficult to understand, might mitigate culpability, or increase impact of punishment

Front 6

What are four commons situations that may precipate a pre-sentencing referral for a psych report?

Back 6

no history of offending, charged with and unsual offence, person is charged with an offence that is usually associated with psychological aberration, offender appears to have a mental illness or a history of psychiatric treatment

Front 7

What are 8 points to be included in the structure of a court report?

Back 7

1. referral source & report details 2. informed consent 3. presentation of mental state 4. background information 5. psychometric testiing 6. risk assessment 7. summary & opinion 8. recommendations

Front 8

What are four factors that form part of the background information to be included iin a court report?

Back 8

personal history, education/emploment history, physical/mental health &substance abuse, offence history & account of offence

Front 9

What type of information do the courts tend to focus on when evaluating treatment recommendations?

Back 9

- the offenders motivation - Family/Environment sitaution - Past treatment attempts - Environmental considerations

Front 10

What are some inherent problems with psychologists undertaking forencis assessments for the courts?

Back 10

1. May take role of helping agent 2. Psychologists not trained in forensic assessment may compromise objectivity by being empahtetic 3. Psychologist may focus on subjective reality rather than determining objective reality 4. Determine credibility by ruling out malingering and impression management

Front 11

Why have psychologists and psychiatrist been accused of being bleeding hearts in the courts?

Back 11

1. to often find psychopathology 2. overestimate the likihood of rehabilitation 3. excuse rather than explain the offence 4. ignore sentencing goals other than rehabilitation 5. recommend treatments that are unavailable or unrealistic 6. ignore motivation, responsivity, and risk

Front 12

Why conduct forensic risk assessments?

Back 12

to predict who might offend or reoffend

Front 13

Something that is statistically associated with the outcome of interest is known as what?

Back 13

risk factor

Front 14

What are the three components of risk assessment in forensic psychology?

Back 14

Risk of: violence, general reoffending, and sexual violence

Front 15

Evaluating an individual toa scertain the extent to which they possess risk factors that have been shown to relate to te outcome of interest is known as what?

Back 15

Risk assessment

Front 16

What six characteristics are associated with an increased risk of vioence?

Back 16

1. previous violence 2. substance misuse 3. younger age 4. suspended or expelled from school 5. marital status 6. diagnosis of schizophrenia

Front 17

What does SPJ stand for? What does it refer to?

Back 17

Structured Professional Judgement - risk assessment

Front 18

What is the HCR-20?

Back 18

Historical, Clinical, Risk Management - 20 is a risk assessment tool for predicting the probability of violence

Front 19

What are six advantages for structured risk assessments?

Back 19

1 - Evdience-based, transparent, and less prone to bias 2 - Standardised assessments 3 - Flexible and adaptable with new research 4 - Can identify reasons for offending 5 - Identifies targets for treatment or risk management 6 - People are not judged as untreatable

Front 20

What six problems with structured risk assessment?

Back 20

1 - Often unstructured as people use clincial judegement 2 - Risk of labelling a person 'high risk' making services unwilling to engage with them 3 - Costly and time consuming 4 - Never 100% accurate 5 - Court can be overly reliant without understanding the weaknesses 6 - If used inappropriately the person is sentenced on what they can do instead of what they did do

Front 21

Most interventions fro offenders are aimed at what?

Back 21

restoring, building or compensating for characteristics and skills whose absence is thought to lead to offending behaviour

Front 22

What are the three underlying assumptions of offender treatment/rehabilitation?

Back 22

1. Effecting change in the individual will affect change in the offending behaviour 2. Largely ignores the impact of sical structure and societal mechanism that produce criminal behaviour 3. Reactive as it tends to focus on individuals who have already committed crimes

Front 23

What is the core goal of psychological treatment and how is this different to the core goal for forensic psychological treatment?

Back 23

Core goal of psychological treatment is to reduce the distress/dysfunction experienced by the client, where the core goal of forensic psychological treatment also incudes reducing the liklihood of reoffending

Front 24

What three types of treatment targets?

Back 24

offender specific, skills absed, and disorder based

Front 25

What are 3 examples of offender specific treatment targets?

Back 25

sex offender programs, violent offender programs, and DV programs

Front 26

What are 3 examples of skills based treatment targets?

Back 26

problem solving, social skills, and cognitive skills

Front 27

What are 3 examples of disorder based treatment targets?

Back 27

treatment of mental illness, drug and alcohol treatment, and emotional regulation

Front 28

What is the example of an offence chain for a sexual offender?

Back 28

no offending, intrusion of background factors such as negative mood, wants to feel better, thinks positively about offending behaviour, starts high risk offence related behaviours such as fantasising, has cognitive distortions such as all woman are Xitches and derve to be raped, contacts victim, sexually offends, has post offence rationalisations, no offending

Front 29

What are two methods of treatment delivery?

Back 29

individual and group

Front 30

Pros and cons of individiual therapy.

Back 30

- can deal with more complex issues - can use multiple methods - can be confronting - no structured - different theretical foci

Front 31

Pros and cons of indivdiual group therapy.

Back 31

- scope limited by group content - often requires greater verbal/language ability - allows particpants to bounce off each other - skills focus

Front 32

In order, how is treatment prioritised?

Back 32

1. mental disorder 2. responsivity issues such as factors that complicate treatment 3. primary underlying factors which are direct triggers for offending 4. Distal factors which are indirect triggers for offending

Front 33

What are two main reasons psychologist may appear in court as a witness?

Back 33

they are treating someone involved in a case, or as an 'expert witness' with knowledge in an area relevent to a case

Front 34

Psychologist called to made direct testimony as a result of treating a client involved in a court case must only comment on what and not do what?

Back 34

must only comment of factually based information and not draw inferences

Front 35

What are the two functions of expert witness testimony?

Back 35

1. provdie the court with information that ssists in their understanding of the issue facing the court, and 2. provide the coourt with an opinion

Front 36

Expert witnesses are permitted to provide their opintions pertaining to what?

Back 36

matters within their domain of expertise

Front 37

What are the three rules which can result in inadmissible expert opinions?

Back 37

the experts rule, the field of expertise rule, and the common knowledge rule

Front 38

What are two stages in the examination of an expert witness in court?

Back 38

examination-in-chief (conducted by party callig the witness), and cross examination (conducted by other party or judge)

Front 39

What are four reasons an expert witness is called?

Back 39

to build or support the party's case, to weakent he opponents case, to strengthen the credibility of the witness, or to strengthen or weaken the credibility of the other witnesses

Front 40

What are the three purposes of cross examination?

Back 40

to weaken, qualify or detroy the opponents case, to support th eparty's own case through the testimony of the opponents witness, or to discredit the witness

Front 41

Who conducts re-examination and what?

Back 41

the lawyer who called the witness, after cross-emaniation to clarify or reinterate points already made or seek to rehabilitate credability after cross-examination

Front 42

What are 8 ploys commonly used in cross-examination?

Back 42

1 - infalibility complex 2 - god only knows gambit 3 - yes-no questioning 4 - bought or biased testimony 5 - unreliable examination gambit 6 - subjective opinion ploy 7 - loaded question ploy 8 - lawyer as expert ploy

Front 43

What are six types of criminal investigation analysis?

Back 43

offender profiling, indirect personality assessment, equivocal death analysis, linkage analysis, threat assessment, and trial strategy

Front 44

The process of drawing inferences about a suspects characteristics from the details of his or her actions in a crime is know as what?

Back 44

offender profiling

Front 45

What is the underlying premise of offender profiling?

Back 45

that behaviour reflects personality