Dummy’s Guide to Forensic Risk Assessment
A risk assessment identifies risk factors, anticipated level of risk, and necessary risk reduction and management strategies. Conclusion language utilizes specification of risk factors and risk reduction strategies that may mitigate identified risk factors. Risk assessments should include both risk likelihood and risk reduction. Risk assessment assumes probability of recurrence in the absence of risk […]
Dummy’s Guide to Risk Reduction for Sex Offenders
For human beings, there are two primary classes of constraints against doing wrong or bad: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic constraints focus on the offender’s internalized norms, conscience, empathy capacity, impulse control, and ability to foresee and be constrained by anticipated consequences of the offense behavior. Intrinsic constraints against offending behavior may be weakened through the […]
Is the testimony of experts at child sex abuse trials helpful?
The testimony of experts in child sex abuse trials is controversial. There are serious legal constraints on expert testimony concerning credibility of the witness, properly the domain of the trier of fact (see US vs. Brooks, a court martial, where my testimony was rejected by a military court of appeals as crossing the line). Thus, […]
Forensic conundrum: Geriatric competency to stand trial evaluations
Does old age render you incompetent? Incompetent elders have started showing up in increasing numbers, in both civil (testamentary/contractual competency, guardianship proceedings) and criminal arenas (competency to stand trial). We have adopted what we consider a powerful new assessment approach to forensic neurocognitive assessments based on Pearson’s WAIS-IV-WMS-IV-ACS combo and started looking at the data. Table A.2 […]