Bias

Occasionally, after I have completed an evaluation and proffered an opinion, a party accuses me of “bias.”  I think this means they disagree with my opinion. Most people cannot define “bias” very well.  Karen Franklin defines bias very nicely in her Feedblitz forensic psychology blog. I quote her below: The term bias refers to a […]

Forensic Clinician’s Tool Box: Competency to Stand Trial measures

Assessment psychologists need a wide range of tools to address the variety of assessment challenges that arise in daily practice.  Not that different from a set of wrenches and scredrivers designed for every type of bolt and screw. It is perhaps not surprising that many psychologists persist in using “traditional” assessment measures in forensic psychological assessment […]

Sex Offender Age and Recidivistic Risk Estimates

Up until now actuarial risk indicators for sexual violence using static indicators have not typically taken age of the offender into account. The big guys (Harris, Rice, & Quinsey) using the VRAG and SORAG explicitly resisted the idea, stating that adding age does not improve prediction, all though there is a lot of support for the […]

17,000 Helens agree — Bad Parents are Bad News

But seriously, check out http://www.cdc.gov/ace/index.htm. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is one of the largest investigations ever conducted to assess associations between childhood maltreatment and later-life health and well-being. The study is a collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente’s Health Appraisal Clinic in San Diego. More than 17,000 […]