Applied Forensic Psychology

Este artigo discute a atuacao das profissionais autoras no atendimento dos casos que envolvem denuncias de abuso sexual contra criancas e adolescentes no âmbito do judiciario. Pretende refletir sobre questoes pertinentes que permeiam o trabalho do psicologo judiciario, enfatizando duas questoes centrais: o objetivo da avaliacao psicologica nos casos de denuncias de abuso sexual contra criancas e adolescentes e identificar quais elementos contribuem na producao e elaboracao do relatorio/laudo psicologico.

After adjudication by the courts that an individual is not criminally responsible for the offense committed, forensic psychiatrists/psychologists are tasked with evaluating an acquittees' ongoing risk of violence. These findings determine whether an acquittee is retained in a forensic hospital or transferred to a civil psychiatric setting or into the community. Better understanding of risk factors that affect decisions to retain or release acquittees from secure forensic facilities would increase clarity in decision-making, assist evaluators in identifying who may be successful outside of secure settings, and potentially assist in the development and implementation of targeted treatments to address risk factors before and after transfer. The current study evaluated which risk factors of the Historical-Clinical-Risk Management 20, Version 3 differentiated acquittees whom clinicians opined to have a dangerous mental disorder and required retention from those whom clinicians opined...

Traditional report formats commonly employed to summarize forensic mental health evaluations pose several limitations, including that they implicitly encourage inclusion of irrelevant data and only data that are consistent with one's opinions and discourage writers from explicitly distinguishing between case data, their inferences, and their reasoning. To remedy these issues, we propose a relevancy-focused (RF) report format, which is a findings-based report style developed specifically for use when summarizing results of forensic psychological evaluations. We describe a practical guide to the critical thinking and rhetorical writing embodied in the RF. Public Significance Statement Forensic psychological evaluations play a key role in civil and criminal litigation, as do the reports that summarize them. Reports must accurately and efficiently communicate the assessment process, the data gathered, and the examiner's opinions and underlying reasoning. Described in this article is a structure for forensic report writing that was designed specifically with these important obligations in mind.

Approximately 1% of the male population acquires a sexual conviction over their lifetime with sexual recidivism rates of approximately 13% over 5 years. The effect of treatment on sexual recidivism is modest. The Challenge Project has adopted an integrative approach to the treatment of sexual offenders, combining both attachment and desistance theory. It assumes that all individuals with sexual convictions eventually desist from offending, and the intervention programme aims to maximise opportunities to achieve a prosocial life in the community. The aim of this thematic analysis was to explore the process of desistance in a sample of high-risk sexual offenders with persistent and pervasive psychological difficulties, who have been recently released to the community. Participants' experiences of their engagement in Challenge and its impact on achieving their desistance goals were captured in five key themes. As a whole, these key themes reflected the importance of high-quality relationships with professionals and support from significant others; the role of cognitive transformation and redemptive narratives in achieving key desistance goals; and managing the stigma of living with sexual convictions. These findings have potentially relevant implications for policy-making and clinical practice when working with and managing sex offenders in the community.

It is possible that a portion of the competency crisis may be due to some defendants being misclassified as incompetent, secondary to evaluations of questionable thoroughness and quality, and perhaps over-reliance on interviews and lesser acquisition of collateral data. Meanwhile, a review of descriptive statistics suggests that, as criminal penalties have become increasingly harsh, requests for competency evaluations have proportionately increased. Thus, there is a risk that lengthy waiting lists, mounting time pressures, and attorney tactics may push evaluators in the direction of expediency, possibly at the expense of higher quality forensic work. Evaluators may therefore consider acquiring and perhaps more significantly relying upon relevant collateral informational sources, including police recorded interviews, jail recorded calls, social media content, and prior court records. While an evaluation of present mental state does not necessarily require significant background data, better use of technologies in an evaluation of competency may provide a more objective representation of competency-relevant, mental health-related history. So doing may help to solve a portion of the competency crisis that may be due to evaluations including inadequate collateral data. Best practice approaches, anecdotes, and limitations are presented.

Approximately 1% of the male population acquires a sexual conviction over their lifetime with sexual recidivism rates of approximately 13% over 5 years. The effect of treatment on sexual recidivism is modest. The Challenge Project has adopted an integrative approach to the treatment of sexual offenders, combining both attachment and desistance theory. It assumes that all individuals with sexual convictions eventually desist from offending, and the intervention programme aims to maximise opportunities to achieve a prosocial life in the community. The aim of this thematic analysis was to explore the process of desistance in a sample of high-risk sexual offenders with persistent and pervasive psychological difficulties, who have been recently released to the community.

Participants’ experiences of their engagement in Challenge and its impact on achieving their desistance goals were captured in five key themes. As a whole, these key themes reflected the importance of high-quality relationships with professionals and support from significant others; the role of cognitive transformation and redemptive narratives in achieving key desistance goals; and managing the stigma of living with sexual convictions. These findings have potentially relevant implications for policy-making and clinical practice when working with and managing sex offenders in the community.

This paper examined quality of forensic reports submitted to the Hawaii Judiciary. Hawaii utilizes a three panel system for assessing fitness to proceed, where two psychologists and one psychiatrist submit independent reports to the Court. Utilizing a survey instrument based on previous research and nationallyderived quality standards, 150 competency to stand trial (CST) reports were examined. Reports demonstrated pervasive mediocrity with respect to quality (Mean QC = 68.95, SD = 15.21). One quarter (N = 38) of the reports scored at or above 80% of the maximum possible score. Levels of CST agreement between evaluators and evaluators and judges were high. Report quality did not differ as a function of evaluator professional identity. Full-time employed evaluators submitted a greater number of reports above the quality criterion. For those evaluators who attended the March training, reports demonstrated significantly improved quality. Suggestions for enhancing report quality are offered with a special attention to inclusion of report elements, focus on inclusion of historical elements, and clearly described rationales supporting forensic opinions. (7664 words. Competency to stand trial, inter-rater agreement).

Background There is a dearth of research regarding the content and structure of juvenile predisposition psychological evaluations. Limited research suggests that key mental health domains are insufficiently represented and judges use evaluator recommendations regarding legal outcomes more often than clinical outcomes. Studies have not addressed whether content and/or structure of evaluations influence the use of evaluator recommendations by juvenile probation officers (JPOs). Objective This study reviewed and rated the content and structure of juvenile predisposition psychological evaluations conducted in an East Coast state to identify evaluation characteristics that informed JPOs use of evaluation recommendations in disposition planning. Methods Juvenile predisposition psychological evaluations (N = 150) were reviewed and coded on key variables (e.g., legal history, sociocultural factors, Forensic Mental Health Assessment-FMHA principles, use of empirically-supported tools). Results Multiple content areas including family history, drug and alcohol history, education history were included in the evaluations (ranging from 48 to 100 %); however, sufficient detail for content domains ranged from 10 to 76 %. Evaluator recommendations were incorporated in disposition plans 35 % of the time, regardless of evaluation content or sufficiency, with 70 % of accepted recommendations being mental health related. Conclusions Although evaluations often included information covering multiple key content areas, there was significant variability in the amount of information provided. Inconsistent with prior research with judges, none of the variables of interest (presence and sufficiency of detail, well-justified and explained recommendations, adherence to FMHA

The scientific article is dedicated to the study and analysis of the theory of application in forensics, at the stage of interviewing / interrogating, the Reid technique.<br> The Reid technique is a widely recognized method of interviewing those who are involved in a criminal investigation in the United States to exonerate the innocent and identify the culprit.<br>

The notion of personality of the offender is a criminological concept, which includes the legal-criminal notion of the offender and the psycho-social notion. There are various opinions regarding the notion of the personality of the violent criminal and those characteristics that the latter must possess. As a result, the author, in this study, exposes his vision on the given issue and elucidates those characteristics, which in his opinion are the basis of every violent criminal.

This study examines how forensic evaluators' opinions that pertain to diagnosis, competency to stand trial, and criminal responsibility (Maryland's version of the not guilty by reason of insanity plea) are rendered at a state forensic hospital for defendants pleading not criminally responsible. Pretrial evaluations completed independently by a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and a social worker were presented at a forensic staff conference where psychiatrist and psychologists openly "voted" on diagnosis, competency to stand trial, and criminal responsibility. These results were then sent to the court. The purpose of this study was to assess the clinicians' level of agreement and the role that conformity played in the decision-making process. A sample of twenty court-ordered pretrial evaluations of defendants examined at the hospital between March and June 1991, with evaluators' opinions generated by a secret ballot, were compared with a matched control group ...

Este artigo discute a atuacao das profissionais autoras no atendimento dos casos que envolvem denuncias de abuso sexual contra criancas e adolescentes no âmbito do judiciario. Pretende refletir sobre questoes pertinentes que permeiam o trabalho do psicologo judiciario, enfatizando duas questoes centrais: o objetivo da avaliacao psicologica nos casos de denuncias de abuso sexual contra criancas e adolescentes e identificar quais elementos contribuem na producao e elaboracao do relatorio/laudo psicologico.

Aims and method Relational security is an important component of care and risk assessment in mental health services, but the utility of available measures remains under-researched. This study analysed the psychometric properties of two relational security tools, the See Think Act (STA) scale and the Relational Security Explorer (RSE). Results The STA scale had good internal consistency and could highlight differences between occupational groups, whereas the RSE did not perform well as a psychometric measure. Clinical implications The measures provide unique and complimentary perspectives on the quality of relational security within secure services, but have some limitations. Use of the RSE should be restricted to its intended purpose; to guide team discussions about relational security, and services should refrain from collecting and aggregating this data. Until further research validates their use, relational security measurement should be multidimensional and form part of a wider ...

This study examines how forensic evaluators' opinions that pertain to diagnosis, competency to stand trial, and criminal responsibility (Maryland's version of the not guilty by reason of insanity plea) are rendered at a state forensic hospital for defendants pleading not criminally responsible. Pretrial evaluations completed independently by a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and a social worker were presented at a forensic staff conference where psychiatrist and psychologists openly "voted" on diagnosis, competency to stand trial, and criminal responsibility. These results were then sent to the court. The purpose of this study was to assess the clinicians' level of agreement and the role that conformity played in the decision-making process. A sample of twenty court-ordered pretrial evaluations of defendants examined at the hospital between March and June 1991, with evaluators' opinions generated by a secret ballot, were compared with a matched control group ...

Aims and method Relational security is an important component of care and risk assessment in mental health services, but the utility of available measures remains under-researched. This study analysed the psychometric properties of two relational security tools, the See Think Act (STA) scale and the Relational Security Explorer (RSE). Results The STA scale had good internal consistency and could highlight differences between occupational groups, whereas the RSE did not perform well as a psychometric measure. Clinical implications The measures provide unique and complimentary perspectives on the quality of relational security within secure services, but have some limitations. Use of the RSE should be restricted to its intended purpose; to guide team discussions about relational security, and services should refrain from collecting and aggregating this data. Until further research validates their use, relational security measurement should be multidimensional and form part of a wider ...

To develop rehabilitative treatment programs for persons who have committed crimes, correctional psychologists build theoretical structures that weld theoretical ideas about the causes of criminal behavior, theoretical perspectives about appropriate targets for correctional intervention and normative assumptions about crime and the aims of correctional intervention. To differentiate the tri-partite theoretical structure with which correctional program designers work, Ward and Durrant (2021) introduce the metatheoretical concept of "practice frameworks". In this paper, I describe and evaluate this concept, situating my analysis within the broader contexts of philosophical work on scientific theories and models and metatheoretical work on the structure of explanatory and intervention theories in correctional psychology.

: It is true that the average criminal is a person with a limited horizon, who out of habit, convenience or limited resources usually practices only one form of action; ordinary criminals specialize in a certain method of committing their crimes.
In other words, criminals tend to commit their crimes in certain individual characteristic ways.
The thief who forces the rear window with a "jemmy", is usually limited to this method, while his brother in crime, being a thief, amplifies his skills in using specially designed keys – “pontoarca”. The pickpocket who wears a coat on his arm to hide the cunning "work" of his fingers follows that mode of operation and no other, while his colleague, professionally speaking, may limit himself to a less skillful but much more dangerous method by dispossessing the victim's property using force in other words robbing.
In this study, you will learn how and why criminals attack. Their modes of operation, which until now were clandestine and conspiracy, known only to themselves and to the police departments investigating them, I will now highlight. So, let's follow in the footsteps of criminals who operate day or night and learn the tricks of their trade.

Mudanças sociais e culturais trazem novos conceitos e valores, os quais provocam reflexos no modo de vida da sociedade, cumprindo às Ciências Jurídicas acompanhar tal transformação. Neste contexto, por meio de uma pesquisa descritiva/bibliográfica, o presente trabalho buscou, nas plataformas Scielo e Oasisbr, publicações do período 2012-2016, referentes à interdisciplinaridade Psicologia x Direito, objetivando identificar as demandas existentes e as contribuições da Psicologia no contexto jurídico. Concluiu-se que os psicólogos podem contribuir para a maior precisão nos feitos jurídicos, fornecendo saberes e práticas derivadas de sua atuação.

A EDITORA FORENSE se responsabiliza pelos vícios do produto no que concerne à sua edição (impressão e apresentação a fim de possibilitar ao consumidor bem manuseá-lo e lê-lo). Nem a editora nem o autor assumem qualquer responsabilidade por eventuais danos ou perdas a pessoa ou bens, decorrentes do uso da presente obra. Todos os direitos reservados. Nos termos da Lei que resguarda os direitos autorais, é proibida a reprodução total ou parcial de qualquer forma ou por qualquer meio, eletrônico ou mecânico, inclusive através de processos xerográficos, fotocópia e gravação, sem permissão por escrito do autor e do editor. Impresso no Brasil -Printed in Brazil ■Direitos exclusivos para o Brasil na língua portuguesa Copyright © 2016 by EDITORA FORENSE LTDA. Uma editora integrante do GEN | Grupo Editorial Nacional Travessa do Ouvidor, 11 -Térreo e 6º andar -20040-040 -Rio de Janeiro -RJ Tel.: (21) 3543-0770 -Fax: (21) 3543-0896 faleconosco@grupogen.com.br | www.grupogen.com.br ■O titular cuja obra seja fraudulentamente reproduzida, divulgada ou de qualquer forma utilizada poderá requerer a apreensão dos exemplares reproduzidos ou a suspensão da divulgação, sem prejuízo da indenização cabível (art. 102 da Lei n. 9. 610, de 19.02.1998). Quem vender, expuser à venda, ocultar, adquirir, distribuir, tiver em depósito ou utilizar obra ou fonograma reproduzidos com fraude, com a finalidade de vender, obter ganho, vantagem, proveito, lucro direto ou indireto, para si ou para outrem, será solidariamente responsável com o contrafator, nos termos dos artigos precedentes, respondendo como contrafatores o importador e o distribuidor em caso de reprodução no exterior (art. 104 da Lei n. 9.610/98). ■Capa: Rodrigo Lippi Produção digital: Geethik ■Fechamento desta edição: 13.01.2016 ■CIP -Brasil. Catalogação na fonte. Sindicato Nacional dos Editores de Livros, RJ. Silva, Denise Maria Perissini da, 1968-Psicologia jurídica no processo civil brasileiro: a interface da psicologia com o direito nas questões de família e infância / Denise Maria Perissini da Silva. -3. ed. rev., atual. e ampl. -Rio de Janeiro: Forense, 2016. Inclui bibliografia ISBN 978-85-309-6908-0 1. Psicologia forense. 2. Prova pericial. 3. Laudos periciais. 4. Processo civil -Brasil. I. Título. 09-2224. CDU: 340.6 "Amor, trabalho e conhecimento são as fontes da vida. Deveriam também governá-la." Wilhelm Reich

Referências técnicas para atuação do psicólogo em Varas de Família 1ª edição É permitida a reprodução desta publicação, desde que sem alterações e citada a fonte. Disponível também em: www.pol.org.br 1ª edição -2010 Projeto Gráfico -Luana Melo/Liberdade de expressão Diagramação -Alessandro Santanna Revisão -Joíra Coelho/Suely Touguinha/Cecília Fujita

A nova metodologia de inquirição de crianças e adolescentes vítimas de abuso sexual pelo Poder Judiciário denominada Depoimento Especial tem sido discutida por profi ssionais de diferentes áreas do conhecimento. Dessas discussões, resultaram opiniões divergentes sobre o assunto. Esse artigo visa apresentar historicamente a metodologia do Depoimento Especial, primeiramente denominado Depoimento Sem Dano, e discutir as necessidades de a Justiça dialogar com outros saberes para um melhor direcionamento da realização deste ato processual -a ouvida da criança. Conclui-se, a partir da revisão de literatura e da interlocução entre Psicologia e Direito, que as discordâncias e debates legais não têm contribuído para a proteção das vítimas. O Poder Judiciário e outras áreas do conhecimento precisam fortalecer suas habilidades para trabalhar em conjunto numa interlocução respeitosa e equânime troca de conhecimentos. A realização da nova metodologia é possível e necessária, entretanto, mudanças podem trazer benefícios e maior proteção a crianças e adolescentes brasileiros.

Evaluations of competence to stand trial (CST) are the most common type of criminal forensic evaluation conducted, and courts tend to defer to clinician opinions regarding a defendant's competence. Thus, it is important to study the ways in which clinicians arrive at opinions regarding adjudicative competence and the data they consider in forming their opinions. We reviewed 8,416 evaluations conducted by forensic evaluators in Virginia over a 12 year period, and examined (a) the clinical, demographic, and criminal characteristics of a defendant as related to opinions regarding competence, predicted restorability, and impairment on ''prongs'' of the Dusky standard, (b) process and outcome differences in evaluations conducted by psychiatrists versus psychologists and inpatient versus outpatient evaluators, and (c) the consistency of incompetence base rates over a 10 year period. Overall, clinicians opined that 19% of defendants were incompetent and considered 23% of these unlikely to be restored to competence. Not surprisingly, psychotic

Referências técnicas para atuação do psicólogo em Varas de Família 1ª edição É permitida a reprodução desta publicação, desde que sem alterações e citada a fonte. Disponível também em: www.pol.org.br 1ª edição -2010 Projeto Gráfico -Luana Melo/Liberdade de expressão Diagramação -Alessandro Santanna Revisão -Joíra Coelho/Suely Touguinha/Cecília Fujita

Aborda-se a utilização do referencial psicanalítico no atendimento a um tipo de família com dificuldade para pensar em avaliação pericial na Vara de Família pelo psicólogo judiciário. Os desentendimentos e a incapacidade de enfrentar conflitos nestas famílias acabam levando à busca de uma sentença judicial como forma de resolver o litígio. Procura-se demonstrar que tais dificuldades têm por base uma impossibilidade de suportar as tensões inerentes aos conflitos e como conseqüência, um modo de agir pautado em estruturas esquizo-paranóides nas quais o pensamento não é o modo predominante de aproximação. Justifica-se o alto grau de impulsividade encontrado nos membros de tais famílias, o que demanda da Justiça a colocação de limites legais. A possibilidade de contribuição do psicólogo no contexto institucional do Tribunal de Justiça é exemplificada a partir da análise de um caso.

Students enrolled in two general psychology classes at El Centro College (ECC) of the Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD) were offered the opportunity to earn extra credit by performing up to 20 hours of service learning. Benefits of service learning were observed in student development, including exploration of career possibilities, increased awareness of community needs, and improved ability to relate to others. The researchers specifically focused on students who did not participate in the optional service learning component. These students also reported benefits by being integrated into to three in-course instructor-guided service learning sessions.