LASA: Evaluation of a Forensic Psychological Report
Abstract
This is a research report that provides information about a case and a review that has been analyzed in relation to the conventions and standards in psychological reporting for parole boards. The findings show that there are some limitation and inappropriate levels and measures that have been used. The research could be improved and made more relevant, reliable and understandable.
There are some things relating to cultural sensitivity issues like language and consent as well as local community variables that were not put in place. Furthermore, some challenges in the subject under review suggests that there could be specific matters that could be studied under the ICD-10 standards. This will help to trace issues and problems and provide specific solutions.
Treatment planning could be done by evaluating and analysis of the risks that comes with the patient and the presentation of therapies and treatment processes to prevent the subject from breaking at major points. The information taken is generally not confidential within the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system and its relevant authorities and officials could use the information for criminal procedures. However, the information in the report will be prevented from being leaked to private issues and situations without specific criminal justice implications.
The outline and report structures are not comprehensive. The report and its structure is somewhat limited and does not show proper responsibility and good summaries of what was done. Also, the report is not friendly to the non-expert. There is no appendix and other things that can help to make the information understandable and readable.
Introduction
Psychological evaluations in the criminal justice system is meant to provide expert evidence that influences decisions by members of the judiciary. Thus, they need to be held to some standards of ethical conformity in order to attain specific goals and ends. The purpose of this research paper is to critically evaluate and analyze a sample case of a psychological report in order to review aspects of ethical considerations that are inherent in the report. This involves the evaluation of a forensic mental health report presented to a Board of Parole. This research will critique and analyze the different components of the report and discuss the relevant findings and patterns in the entire process.
Role and Purpose of the Report
In the American legal system, the forensic psychologist is considered an expert who provide evidence that can aid in the decision of a constituted board or court of competent jurisdiction. A Parole Board (PB) is an independent body that evaluates the cases of incarcerated persons and assess whether they are fit to be released on probation into the society or not. This is due to a variety of factors like giving convicted persons a second chance, reducing overcrowding in prisons and creating alternative forms of delivering justice. The core function of the Parole Board is to ensure there is a reduction of risk that a person released on parole will not cause crime or disturbances to public peace.
The purpose of this report is to provide evidence and a basis on which the Parole Board can make a decision on whether to keep Mr. Smith in prison or release him. The evidence is supposed to be over a period of time and should be based on evidence of what scientific evaluations and monitoring has transpired and how this provides an accurate prediction of what Mr. Smith has achieved so far and what his conduct would be when released to the public sphere. The report therefore provides an impartial basis for such a conclusions to be drawn.
Thus, the intention of this report is to give a combination of separate observations, reviews and evaluations to give a precise and logical identification of Mr. Smith’s history, character at the time of incarceration, treatments and hearings as well as progress that have been made by the patient. This is to be prepared by legally verifiable professionals with relevant education, ethical awareness and work experience to conduct such experience. It also provides hard evidence of oral hearings that have taken place and how they come together to define Mr. Smith’s character and intentions. Based on this, it is expected that the Parole Board will give an accurate or a near-accurate decision on whether to release him before his time or keep him in custody. Ultimately, this leads to a professional opinion on Mr. Smith’s readiness for release.
Scope of the Report
Generally, the report under review gives the reader some insight into the facts relating to Mr. Smith and provides some important information. However, there are some technical matters that are missing. This will be reviewed according to the salient features of forensic psychological reports presented to parole boards.
Introduction: The introduction of a psychological report must provide information and insight into some key issues. This includes the basic information of the potential parolee and the report writer. The report writer must be identified as a matter of personal responsibility to the report and this includes the presentation of the job title, competency, experience and others. This reports focuses more on the parolee and says very little about the writer of the report and his or her credentials.
Purpose and Context: There must be a clear statement providing information about the report. Some background information is scattered across the report which does not make for unified reading and proper evaluation. The methods of assessments and sources of information are not clearly outlined in a purpose and context statement and this makes the report a bit difficult to read.
Documented Background: The report does a fair job in providing the background of Mr. Smith and his relations. There is a coverage of psychological assessments and view of current proceedings. There is some raw data that is not explained in simple language. And this is problematic because Parole Boards are often constituted of laypersons who have no knowledge of psychology. Thus, things like DSM diagnosis and other metrics have to be explained in simple terms in an appendix.
Conclusion: Summaries of opinions must be concise and definitive as well as specific. In this report, the summaries of opinions are wordy and they do not point out to specific ends and specific prescriptions. They restate things that should be in the body of the report.
Appendix: There is no appendix provided. There is a general statement about follow-ups and other similar actions. This is not ideal and provides a lot of limitation to an average read of the report.
Cultural Sensitivity
In this case of Mr. Smith who is of a Hispanic origin, there are two main areas of cultural sensitivity that might be necessary. The first has to do with the language and consent and the second has to do with the inclusion of Hispanic community factors.
Language and Consent
It is apparent that they accepted that Mr. Smith did not require an interpreter because of past records. However, there are questions of how well he understood all the complex requirements and issues relating to psychology. This is because the validity of interviews of people who speak English as a second language is always lower than that of those who speak English as a native language . Therefore, it is necessary to have had some counter mechanisms to ensure that difficult conceptions were broken down to Mr. Smith and there were reviews with a Spanish interpreter on some important pointers. This makes the validity of the information presented suspicious and there are some cultural matters that were potentially missing and could have been resolved by presenting relevant guidance.
Local Community Variables
Additional Psychological Measures and Standards
It can be noted from the report that the evaluations and assessments are too generic. This is because they were viewed in relation to general trends and processes that do not say much. They do not provide specific explanations to why a seemingly sane Mr. Smith falls for crime that is serious in unusual situations. This is because his convictions were about 6 years apart. And it seems he is alright in prison. That should show some kind of suspicion that he has major issues that can be studied in-depth, rather than through a generic process on the DSM scale which gives blanket indications that do not explain anything. Things like:
Sleep disturbance;
Difficulty in concentration;
Feelings of guilt and
Low self esteem
Provide clues of important things that could link to various mental disorders. For instance, in using the ICD-10 scale, there are many concerns under Chapter 5 (F00 – F99) which includes mental behavior disorders that has symptoms similar to the four issues identified above. Thus, focusing on alcoholism and bipolar disorder seem to be misleading and potentially inaccurate.
F10-F19 of the ICD-10 scale includes disorders relating to psychoactive substance abuse. This means that the team could observe Mr. Smith’s reaction to substances and how these four symptoms are increased or decreased and how this leads to crisis and complications when they occur.
F30-F39 are mood affective disorders. These come up when a person’s mood changes. There is the need to investigate the things that changes his moods closely and how they link to actions that led to his two convictions.
Mania or abnormal arousal is caused by mood swings and changes in environment and this is something that includes changes in sleep cycles and environmental stressors. Therefore, this study could have included the results of the Altman Self-Rating Mania Scale [ASRM] to ascertain how severe mood change and environmental stressors could be. This could help to set the parameters for further treatment or provide the parole officer with information on how to check Mr. Smith’s movements after release.
Also, there is evidence of possible depression and this should have led to the use of the Patient Healthcare Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2). This is going to show element of mixed episodes and features of distress and how he reacts to them. They will help to provide information that would be important in processing the parole.
Utilizing Recommendations in Report to Formulate a Treatment Plan
It is possible to utilize the findings of the research in order to create various treatment plans for Mr. Smith. This can be done by a model of identifying what his issues are and formulate a strategy for the improvement and treatment of him as an individual. There are is the need to answer questions about cognitive functioning and his ability to care for himself. In answering these questions, there are four main questions that must be asked:
Identity
Primary defense
Anxiety tolerance
Impulse control
These things must be done to identify his id, ego and superego standards in order to identify whether he can make choices for recommitment into society. Once the deficits or competencies thereof are established, there is the need to formulate a system through which he can be treated and reintegrated into society.
First of all, there could be a plan for coaching on the basis of getting him to indulge in a contract for safety. This includes the identification of his vulnerable times and through the evaluation of anxiety differences, maniac status and where his breaking points are.
When these vulnerabilities are deduced, there should be the development of cognition, rational-emotive perspectives and various behavioral changes that must be integrated. This will help to provide important information and guidance that will lead to the provision of initial coaching measures and various treatment and therapies.
Therapies that must continue include alcohol dependence and other risks of substance abuse and falling into crime in the community he might be released into. This will guide him to stay out of trouble and become a better person and also reintegrate into society much easily.
Alternative Uses of the Report
In Ake v. Oklahoma it was ruled that a court must ensure a defendant has a psychiatrist who presents an evaluation and assessment of the individual as part of the justice process. This therefore means that the records and information are a part of government property. As a matter of general principle, mental health practice in forensic psychology will have to maintain a no-confidentiality policy. This means that they would have to tell a participant like Mr. Smith that their report is going to be released to departments and units of the criminal justice system without seeking his consent. However, in cases where a specific statutory event occurs – like a court order is issued for such an interview and treatment, then there are confidentiality rules that are binding. And there is the duty to inform the patient of the no-confidentiality policy and its implications.
The documentation becomes a part of Mr. Smith’s records as a convicted inmate. Therefore, it can be used in other criminal justice proceedings and actions. These are general matters relating to police records, correctional facility activities and other justice matters. Therefore, in future issues with the law, like arrest and prosecution, these records including the psychological reports of this nature can be used and applied by any law enforcement official who has the jurisdiction.
However, these records should be used or released outside the normal scope of the criminal justice process. They should not be used to gain private advantage and must always be used when there is a reasonable grounds to do so.
Overall Quality and Readability of the Report
The quality of the report is a little below average. This is because it provides information in a rather generic manner and the information given does not seem to point out specific conclusions. The classifications are not really logical and friendly to the reader. There is no clear introduction and the responsible person who did this report is not identified. Hence, there is a lot of ambiguity.
There are no references or appendices. This makes the report cumbersome and difficult to read. It is not friendly to non-experts and defeats the purpose for which the report is prepared in general. There is no explanation of the technical terms and the technical findings. This is because they are kept in the technical status and processes. However, there is a lot that is left to be desired and expected. But this is not discussed in-depth.
The outline is attempted to be simple. However, there are many summary findings that are not straight-to-the-point. This is because there are many limitations and the findings are somewhat very ambiguous and less likely to present important trends and processes that ask for direct action.
Conclusion
This research report has outlined some important limitation and procedural flaws in the report involving Mr. Smith. There are some confidentiality issues and problems that have not been raised logically and appropriately. Culture was not factored into the report. There is evidence that the subject in the study has some limitation and issues. There could be some specific sicknesses and difficulties that could have been studied further in order to draw a more meaningful conclusion to the entire study.
References
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