Assessment in Forensic populations: Behaviour, risk and profiling - Lecture 9 Flashcards
What is characterising for describing the behaviour?
Scene Time/Date Motive Victim Weapons Property Crime scene analysis
What is characterising for describing the individual?
Physical characteristics Age SES and education Social circumstances and history Psychological characteristics Guilt Risk of re-offending
What are considered psychological characteristics?
Social circumstances Mental health/IQ Moral reasoning Deviant interests Anger and feelings Impulsivity Personality disorders Attitudes and thoughts Guilt, denial and minimisation RISKS: RE-OFFENDING, SUICIDE
How can these be assessed?
Self-report (questionnaires, structured interview, diary) - problems = social desirability, denial, bias Objective measures (cognitive and biological tasks) - problems = indirect measures, problems in interpretation Observational methods (CCTV, confederates) - problems = labour intensive, ethics, difficulty
What does the self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ) cover?
Covers a range of social/individual problems (q1-27) and likelihood of re-offending (q28).
Across 126 prisons and probation areas, how many SAQs were completed?
Between January 2003 and May 2006, 101,240 questionnaires were completed.
What percentage said they had no social or individual problems?
17%
What percentage said they weren’t likely to re-offend?
47%
Who was very likely to re-offend?
Younger and white
What percentage of those that said they would re-offend had a drugs problem?
56%
What percentage of those that said they would re-offend said that drugs would be involved?
27%
What should be assessed for all offenders?
Mental health
IQ
Risk of re-offending
What should be assessed for sexual offenders?
Offence details and history
Denial or minimisation
Willingness to treatment
Other psych assessments (eg. attitudes)
What should be assessed for violent offenders?
Levels of anger
Experience of violent episodes
Sensational interests (eg. martial arts)
Other psych assessments (eg. pro-offence attitudes)
What are the static factors that can be used to help predict re-offending?
Age, gender, criminal history
What are the dynamic factors that can be used to help predict re-offending?
Substance abuse, beliefs, medication non-compliance
What schemes can be used to assess these factors for violent offenders?
HCR-20 (Webster et al, 1995a) and Violence prediction scheme (Webster et al, 1995b)
What schemes can be used to assess these factors for sex offenders?
SVR-20 (boer et al, 1997)
What other tools can be used?
Static 99R, Stable and acute, Rick matrix
What self-report tools can be used to assess anger and feelings?
Anger diaries, the STAXI (Straight-trait Anger Expression Inventory - Spielberger, 1988)
What objective measures can be used to assess anger?
Cognitive biases for detection and attention to violently themed material (Smith and Waterman, 2003)
What is the emotional stroop test?
When the person has to say the name of the colour that the word is written in. Words that are emotionally salient produce longer reactions.
What is the dot-probe test?
When the person has to locate a dot that appears very quickly after the presentation of two words in the position of one word. Quicker to detect violently-themed words.
What is the definition of psychopathy?
“…a constellation of affective, interpersonal, and behavioural characteristics, including egocentricity, impulsivity, irresponsibility, shallow emotions, lack of empathy, guilt or remorse, pathological lying, manipulativeness, and the persistent violation of social norms and expectations (Hare, 1996).”
Diagnosis of psychopathy is not via DSM-IV, TR or ICD-10 but by….
…PCL-R (Hare, 1991)
What does it mean if you score less than 30?
That you have distinct patterns of behaviour, thoughts, emotions, physiological responses. Distinct difference from those meeting criteria for ASPD.
A third meeting criteria for ASPD…
meet criteria for Psychopathy. 7% males and 2% female, so lower presence in population than thought?
How many in prison have psychopathy?
20% (Hare, 1991) but some prison psychologists estimate much higher (eg. 60%)
What is seen as the ‘gold standard’ of deviant sexual interest?
Penile plethysmography (PPG)
However, what has there been an increased interest in recently?
Cognitive tasks as objective measures
What two types of profiling are there?
Inductive
Deductive
What is inductive?
Expert skills and knowledge of profiler
What is deductive?
Forensic evidence, crime scene, offence related
What are the different types of profiling often distinguished as?
Clinical and statistical
What is behavioural consistency?
That at least some offenders have consistent behaviour which persist from crime to crime and influence life-style and personality (eg. violent offenders lose temper easily)
What is homology assumption?
That the more similar two offenders are, the more similar their offences will be (eg. that two rapists, both married and drink excessively will commit rape in ways more similar than would an unmarried rapist who never drinks)
