Forensic Evaluation in Delinquency Cases

Abstract

Mental health professionals have provided forensic evaluations in delinquency cases throughout the one‐hundred‐year existence of the juvenile court. Yet little research has been available to assist the development of this mental health service, and professional guidance through literature and specialized training has lagged far behind other areas of forensic mental health practice. The first section of this chapter describes these conditions historically and suggests that a “new field” of juvenile forensic evaluation has recently emerged due to increased attention to problems of youth violence and increasing evidence of elevated prevalence rates of mental disorders among delinquent youths. Three types of assessments in delinquency cases are reviewed in the three main sections of this chapter: disposition (rehabilitation) assessments, evaluations for estimating risk of future violence, and assessments for psycholegal concepts in delinquency cases (e.g., waiver to criminal court, competence to stand trial, and youths' capacities to waive Miranda rights). Each section reviews the fundamental questions that these evaluations address, from a legal and psychological perspective, then review concepts and methods that have been developed to assist clinicians in obtaining data and making inferences to address those questions. The final section reviews anticipated future advances in forensic assessment in delinquency cases.

Legal, individual, and environmental predictors of court disposition in a sample of serious adolescent offenders.

“…The contemporary juvenile justice system must balance the two competing challenges of optimally providing for youths' positive development and ensuring public safety (Grisso, 2003), with the former goal differentiating it from adult criminal courts. Although landmark juvenile cases, including Kent v. U.S. (1966) and In re Gault (1967) have reduced differences between adult and juvenile courts by providing juveniles with more procedural guarantees of due process, they have also highlighted the enduring role of personal and environmental characteristics specific to each youth (e.g., maturity, behavioral and emotional factors) in dispositional decision-making (In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 1967; Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 1966).…”

“…The contemporary juvenile justice system must balance the two competing challenges of optimally providing for youths' positive development and ensuring public safety (Grisso, 2003), with the former goal differentiating it from adult criminal courts. Although landmark juvenile cases, including Kent v. U.S.…”

The Transfer of Juveniles to Adult Court in Canada and the United States: Confused Agendas and Compromised Assessment Procedures

“…The latter portion of the 19th century witnessed both large-scale societal changes as well as a surge in psychological empiricism that led to a completely novel conceptualization of the juvenile delinquent (Grisso, 2003;Ullman, 2000). The Progressive movement in the U.S., which emerged in response to the deleterious effects that rapid industrialization and urbanization were having on the country, challenged the classic assumption that criminal behavior was the product of a person's free will and therefore represented something deviant within the individual.…”

“…Developmental psychology, although still in its infancy at this time, started to defend the position that, due to factors such as intellectual and emotional immaturity, juvenile offenders could not be considered responsible for their acts in the same way as were adult criminals. Additionally, the study of child development introduced the concept of malleability, and stated that young offenders were to be regarded as substantially more impressionable and amenable to intervention than were their adult counterparts (Grisso, 2003;Halikias, 2000;. Because adolescents were still in the process of developing, society was seen as having a responsibility to affect that developmental process in positive and constructive ways (Platt, 1977).…”

Predicting violence among individuals who engage in self-injury

“…Regarding the literature on violence risk more generally, current theories or models focused on explaining the association between violence toward others and selfdirected violence focus primarily on suicidal behaviours (e.g., Hillbrand, 2001), or use rating scales (e.g., Overt Aggression Scale) or interview procedures that do not differentiate between self-injurious behaviours that are done with the intent to kill oneself and those without such intent (e.g., Daffern & Howells, 2009;Hillbrand et al, 1994;Hillbrand et al, 1996). As such, despite the reported association between self-injury and violent behaviour towards others (Hillbrand, 2001;Maden et al, 2000;Daffern & Howells, 2009) (Grisso, 2003).…”