Quality improvement of forensic mental health evaluations and reports of youth in the Netherlands

Duits, Nils; Hoorn, Steven van der; Wiznitzer, Martin; Wettstein, Robert M.; Beurs, Edwin de

doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2012.09.018

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…The problem of FMHA report quality is not restricted to Australia. Similar concerns on the quality and helpfulness of FMHA reports have been expressed in countries such as France (Combalbert, Andronikof, Armand, Robin, & Bazex, 2014), the Netherlands (Duits, Van Der Hoorn, Wiznitzer, Wettstein, & de Beurs, 2012), Portugal (Guerreiro, Casoni, & Santos, 2014) and the US (Hecker & Steinberg, 2002;Morin et al, 2015).…”

Section: Legislationmentioning

confidence: 64%

Psychological reports for sentencing juveniles in Australian courts

Bycroft

Dear

Drake

2019

Psychiatry, Psychology and Law

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Psychological reports for use in court must be relevant to the legal issues in dispute, meet professional standards, and reflect evidence-based practice. Using the Delphi method, a high degree of consensus was found among Australian experts in the methodology and knowledge required for conducting forensic mental health assessment (FMHAs) and the content needed in pre-sentence reports. Consensus was absent in two areas, if a pre-sentence report should always include a risk-assessment; and the need for a model to guide the FMHA. Without a model it is difficult for practitioners to justify their decision-making process, and judicial officers have no mechanism to determine if the work provided to the court is of an acceptable standard. Future research should focus on developing a model for presentence reports that includes a decision-making process and minimum standards. Researchers also need to determine judicial officers' views on the helpfulness of presentence reports.

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Section: Legislationmentioning

confidence: 64%

Psychological reports for sentencing juveniles in Australian courts

Bycroft

Dear

Drake

2019

Psychiatry, Psychology and Law

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“…In such instances, particular aspects of the person's trajectory, or of his or her narrative might be used as examples of particular ways of thinking, or of being, or of acting that stood out during the assessment or in test results. The capacity to communicate what is specific and personal about a given individual is expected from personality assessments not only in the Portuguese context, but also in other assessment contexts around the world (Duits et al, 2012; R3.1a. Assessment goals associated to article 159 are met according to two criteria: i) capacity to assess the situation that originated the judicial file and capacity to determine oneself accordingly; ii) capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the offense.…”

Section: Relevancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wettstein (2005Wettstein ( , 2010 notes however that most studies of forensic reports draw on data from restricted geographical areas and have focused only on their formal characteristics, which might not always be generalizable to other social contexts or to different justice systems around the world, as other authors have also noted (Duits, van der Horn, Wiznitzer, Wettstein, & Beurs, 2012;Lander & Heilbrun, 2009). Thus the conformity to guidelines in forensic report writing appears insufficient to guarantee the quality of forensic psychological reports (Wettstein, 2005).…”

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confidence: 99%

Relevance and Coherence as Measures of Quality in Forensic Psychological Reports

Guerreiro

Casoni

Santos

2014

Psychiatry, Psychology and Law

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The goal of this research is to provide a general portrait of forensic psychological reports under the Portuguese justice system. An analysis of 106 reports in terms of their relevance and coherence was conducted since these two dimensions appear to be key to better understanding some of the specific characteristics related to the overall quality of forensic psychological reports. A grid was constructed to identify elements related to these two dimensions and its application show that, while mostly meeting formal characteristics such as adequate organization, most of the reports surveyed fell short of meeting the criteria defining relevance and coherence. Results suggest that research on the quality of forensic psychological reports should direct more attention to the internal coherence of the reports and to the importance of reporting on assessment findings that regard the uniqueness of assessees in view of optimizing reports' role as informational support for legal decision-making.

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“…Internationally, attention has been given to results obtained from psychology and forensic psychiatry. [2][3][4][5][6] In such cases, it is important to assure quality, since different and even conflicting results may be obtained by different practitioners. Even techniques of forensic analysis considered to be determinant or practically free of flaws, such as DNA testing, may have subjective interpretations and possibly even be misleading.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of the procedures used in the forensic evaluation of illegal substances: a statistical approach to interpreting reports

Bruni¹,

Yoshida²,

Ferreira³

et al. 2019

Rev. Bras. Crimin.

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ResumoEste estudo utilizou ferramentas estatísticas para avaliar laudos forenses sobre substâncias ilegais. Avaliamos variáveis quanto às características da análise e abordamos a metodologia empregada pelos peritos. Perguntas baseadas no que é necessário para esclarecer a lei foram formuladas. Analisamos 1008 documentos oficiais de diferentes jurisdições, divididos em 504 conjuntos compostos por um laudo preliminar e um laudo definitivo para cada caso. Os laudos foram examinados por uma equação empírica formulada para fornecer um parâmetro denominado “Report Relevance” (Relevância do Laudo), que teve por finalidade classificar cada documento de acordo com uma pontuação relacionada à quantidade de informação contida. A validação do método foi realizada por análise multivariada de dados: Análise de Componentes Principais (Principal Component Analysis, PCA), Análise de Agrupamentos Hierárquicos (Hierarchical Cluster Analysis, HCA), Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogy (SIMCA) e Mínimos Quadrados Parciais (Partial Least Squares, PLS). A análise quantitativa mostrou que os documentos foram bem produzidos, com boa qualidade, uma vez que a Relevância do Laudo apresentou valores em torno de 0,74 ± 0,08 para aqueles provenientes da Polícia Estadual. Em comparação, os documentos provenientes da Polícia Federal obtiveram valores em torno de 0,87 ± 0,05. Fatores que podem explicar essas diferenças e as melhores pontuações para os laudos federais incluem maior investimento em tecnologia e treinamento de pessoal, e menor demanda de mão-de-obra e rotina. Para ambas as forças policiais, alguns aspectos poderiam ser melhorados, como imagens das evidências coletadas ou procedimentos analíticos laboratoriais. Finalmente, a metodologia neste estudo pode ser adaptada para ser usada em outros tipos de investigação forense.Palavras-chave: Substâncias Ilícitas, Procedimentos Periciais, Análise MultivariadaAbstractThis study used statistical tools to evaluate forensic reports on illegal substances. We evaluated variables regarding the characteristics of the analysis and we addressed the methodology employed by the experts. Questions based on what is required to clarify the law were formulated. We have parsed 1008 official documents from different jurisdictions, divided into 504 sets comprised of a preliminary and a final report for each case. The reports were examined by an empirical equation formulated to provide a parameter called “Report Relevance”, which intended to classify each report according to a score related to the amount of information it contained. The validation of the method was performed by multivariate data analysis: Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA), Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogy (SIMCA) and Partial Least Squares (PLS). Quantitative analysis showed that the expert documents were well produced, with good quality, since the Report Relevance showed values around 0.74 ± 0.08 for the reports from the State Police. By comparison, reports from the Federal Police obtained scores around 0.87 ± 0.05. Factors that might explain these differences and the better scores for the Federal reports include increased investment in technology and training of staff, and a lower labor demand and routine. For both police forces, some aspects could be improved, such as images of the collected evidence or laboratory analytical procedures. Finally, the methodology in this study can be adapted to be used in other kinds of forensic investigation.Keywords: Illegal Substances, Expertise Procedures, Multivariate Analysis.

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Quality improvement of forensic mental health evaluations and reports of youth in the Netherlands

Cited by 12 publications

References 20 publications

Psychological reports for sentencing juveniles in Australian courts

Psychological reports for sentencing juveniles in Australian courts

Relevance and Coherence as Measures of Quality in Forensic Psychological Reports

Analysis of the procedures used in the forensic evaluation of illegal substances: a statistical approach to interpreting reports

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