Forensic Evaluation and Treatment of Juveniles: Innovation and Best Practices

196 Pages·2015·6.547 MB·English

by  Randall T Salekin

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Copyright © 2015 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act
of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, including, but not limited to, the process of
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Electronic edition published 2015.
ISBN: 978-1-4338-1935-3 (electronic edition).
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Salekin, Randall T.
Forensic evaluation and treatment of juveniles : innovation and best practice / by Randall T. Salekin.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4338-1934-6 — ISBN 1-4338-1934-1 1. Juvenile delinquents—Rehabilitation. 2. Juvenile justice, Administration of. 3. 
Restorative justice. I. Title.
HV9069.S243 2015
364.36—dc23
2014035188
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record is available from the British Library.
First Edition
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/14595-000
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To Karen, Tyler, and Alexandra:
The three of you are a terrific source of inspiration.
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1.  Legal Contexts and More
Chapter 2.  Juvenile Characteristics, Political and Social Climate, and Transfer
Chapter 3.  Forensic Mental Health Concepts
Chapter 4.  Empirical Foundations and Limits of Juvenile Forensic Evaluation
Chapter 5.  Preparation for the Evaluation and Forensic Practice
Chapter 6.  Data Collection for Juvenile Evaluations
Chapter 7.  Interpretation for Juvenile Evaluations
Chapter 8.  Report Writing and Testimony
Chapter 9.  Treatment of Young People in the Juvenile Justice System
Chapter 10. Conclusion and Future Directions
References
About the Author
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the course of producing this book, I realized there are a great many people to thank for their
contributions. I would like to thank my primary mentors, Richard Rogers and Jim Ogloff, for their help in
getting me started in the field. Their advice has been invaluable. In addition, I would like to thank Susan
Reynolds for her steady support, thoughtful help, and wisdom in helping me find a home for this book. I owe
a thank-you to David Becker, Ann Butler, and Eric Ustad for their work on the manuscript. I also owe a lot
to my dedicated students as well as students who have worked in the Disruptive Behavior Clinic—Liz Adams,
Xinying Ang, Lee Bare, Abby Clark, Sarah Debus, Crystal Dillard, Casey Dillon, Ross Grimes, Natalie
Harrison, Karen Hubbard, Anne-Marie Iselin, Franz Kubak, Whitney Lester, Emily MacDougall, Jill
Rosenbaum, Meghann Sallee, and Kim Sokowloski. Similarly, I owe gratitude to my many friends in the
American Psychology–Law Society, Division 41 of the American Psychological Association. In this regard, I
am thankful for the advice and scholarly work of Marc Boccaccini, Stan Brodsky, Elizabeth Cauffman, Rob
Cramer, Keith Cruise, Mark Cunningham, Dave DeMatteo, Kevin Douglas, John Edens, Paul Frick, Naomi
Goldstein, Tom Grisso, Laura Guy, Stephen Hart, Kirk Heilbrun, Matt Huss, Eva Kimonis, Ivan Kruh, John
Monahan, Tonia Nichols, Candice Odgers, Dustin Pardini, Barry Rosenfeld, Martin Sellbom, Jennifer
Skeem, Jodi Viljoen, Gina Vincent, and Patricia Zapf. I also thank Randy Otto, Alan Goldstein, and Richard
Frederick, also members of the American Psychology–Law Society, who often provided me the opportunity to
conduct workshops on the topic of juvenile forensic evaluations for the American Academy of Forensic
Psychology. I also owe thanks to Ted Altar, Eric Chu, Ted DeLaet, and Murray Ferguson for their
invitations to provide workshops in their provinces in Australia and Canada and to states not typically covered
by the American Academy of Forensic Psychology workshops. Conducting workshops on the topic of forensic
assessment and treatment of juvenile offenders and receiving participant feedback has been incredibly valuable.
The two-way interchange has helped me think about the complexity of these evaluations and has shaped my
thinking and the eventual development of this book. I extend a thank-you to Joel Dvoskin. Through Joel’s
assistance, I became increasingly involved in the treatment of juvenile offenders in the state of Alabama. I also
owe thanks to Walter Wood, Steve Lafreniere, Tim Davis, Alesia Allen, John Faile, and Judge Philip Lisenby
for their help with this body of work. I greatly value the friendship, scholarship, and practice of all those who
have assisted with the production and publication of this volume.
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INTRODUCTION
The primary goal of this book is to offer a synthesis of recent research and policy development on
adolescent offenders and to provide state-of-the-art guidance to clinicians who want to conduct disposition
and transfer evaluations. In the past decade, a large body of literature has accumulated on the risk assessment
of young people. In addition, research pertaining to the treatment amenability of adolescent offenders has
expanded. An area that has perhaps seen the greatest growth is that of the developmental maturity of
adolescents. This line of research was sparked by advocates and scientists concerned with the increasingly
harsh treatment of children in the legal system. Scholars publishing in the developmental maturity literature
have attempted to show the connections between adolescent (im)maturity and criminal behavior. Some of this
research has suggested that because of their immaturity, adolescent offenders may be more prone to, and less
culpable for, antisocial behavior than adults (Moffitt, 1993; L. Steinberg & Scott, 2003). Developmental
maturity has subsequently been considered in recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings and state-level mandates
(Bonnie, Johnson, Chemers, & Schuck, 2012; Scott & Steinberg, 2008). Examples include Roper v. Simmons
(2005), which abolished the death penalty for juveniles; Graham v. State of Florida (2010); and Miller v. State
of Alabama (2012), which held that juveniles cannot be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for
nonhomicide and homicide offenses. (The term juvenile generally refers to youth under age 18 years, although
legal definitions of the term may vary from state to state.) The wave of change in the manner in which
juveniles are treated is also reflected in New York State’s movement toward the provision of treatment for
young offenders in designated communities rather than in detention centers and residential facilities.
In addition to developmental maturity concerns, recent research has also shown the very high levels of
mental health problems and mental disorder in juvenile offenders, especially those in detention (Becker,
Kerig, Lim, & Ezechukwu, 2012; Kang, Wood, Eno Louden, & Ricks, 2014; Teplin, Abram, McClelland,
Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002; Teplin, Welty, Abram, Dulcan, & Washburn, 2012), underscoring the need for a
more developmentally sensitive and psychologically informed approach to the treatment of juveniles.
Advancements in the research base for understanding key juvenile concepts, as well as significant changes in
policy and law, highlight the pressing need for a book on the very best practice regarding juvenile forensic
evaluation and treatment.
It is this confluence of rapid change in research and policy that led to the writing of this monograph.
Through science and practical experience, it became increasingly clear to me that five vital factors should be
examined in juvenile offenders when conducting disposition and transfer evaluations. These elements include
the (a) truthfulness of youth and parent report, (b) youth personality and pathology, (c) risk for dangerous
behavior (d) developmental maturity, and (e) treatment amenability. These five broad issues are at the heart of
juvenile evaluations because they provide the necessary psychological fuel to write detailed and comprehensive
psychological reports for the courts. Because of the high importance of these constructs and what they signify
for the developing juvenile, they are covered in considerable detail in this book (Kent v. United States, 1966;
Rogers, 2008; Salekin & Grimes, 2008).
Although juvenile evaluations are difficult in many respects, this book provides a clear road map for how
to conduct them. In these chapters, I demonstrate how tests can be combined to develop a sound
psychological battery that will facilitate a better understanding of relevant psycholegal constructs. In the pages
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that follow, readers will find information on how traditional and structured interviews can facilitate clinical
judgment and better guide analysis, report writing, and testimony. Also discussed are various self-report,
behavioral rating scales, and even projective tests (e.g., the Thematic Apperception Test; H. A. Murray, 1937)
and their links to pertinent legal concepts. This volume covers specific forensic assessment tools, such as the
Risk–Sophistication–Treatment Inventory (Salekin, 2004), the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk for
Youth (Borum, Bartel, & Forth, 2005), and the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (Hoge,
2005), that can facilitate clinical decision making as it pertains to disposition. Using accurate assessment
technology leads to increasingly precise information and clearer clinical formulations. Accurate evaluations
will have a favorable net effect on the youngest members of U.S. society as well as young people in other
countries by directing them toward adequate treatment programs early in their development while their ability
to change still holds so much promise.
This book is divided into 10 chapters. In Chapter 1, I define disposition and transfer evaluations, discuss
the juvenile justice system and the legal process, and provide an overview of the different potential placements
for young people within the system. Forensic clinicians will learn when they might be called on to conduct
juvenile evaluations as well as where such evaluations may occur. In the second chapter, I review juvenile
characteristics, political climate, and transfer. I highlight the demographic contours of juvenile offenders as
well as underscore the need to be cognizant of the political atmosphere in the United States. Next, in Chapter
3, readers will find a review of the forensic mental health concepts that apply to juvenile offenders and their
placement. I address issues related to veracity of children’s reporting; personality and pathology; and three key
constructs that pertain to juvenile evaluation cases: (a) risk, (b) developmental maturity, and (c) treatment
amenability. Chapter 4 concerns the science behind the forensic mental health concepts, and in Chapter 5, I
discuss factors concerning preparation for evaluations and general practice guidelines with young offenders. In
Chapter 5, I also delineate what will be required from clinicians before mental health professionals can
ethically and competently conduct juvenile evaluations. In Chapter 6, I cover data collection methods and
specify what information is needed for the evaluation itself and how to comprehensively obtain such
information. Given that this material is the needed content for the evaluation, I offer details on how to search
for, and uncover, key pieces of psychological information that can lead to the very best clinical decisions. The
focus of Chapter 7 is on interpretation and on providing readers with further guidelines for both collecting
and interpreting their data.
I offer in Chapter 8 information on report writing and testimony, and I delineate how forensic clinicians
can collate the psychological material they obtain from multiple sources into a clear and comprehensive report.
This chapter also contains information on how to testify in juvenile and adult courts. Further, the chapter
details how psychologists can continue to help to shape policy, improve adolescent forensic evaluations, and
provide opportunities to rehabilitate young people within the justice system. Chapter 9 covers the topic of
treatment and offers new insights into what forensic clinicians can look for in treatment programs in order to
make recommendations that facilitate improved youth conduct and well-being. Last, in Chapter 10, I
summarize the information covered in the preceding chapters and highlight several new directions for
psychological evaluations of young people involved with the legal system.
Over the past 10 years, while conducting workshops on the topic of the assessment and treatment of
juvenile offenders, I have become increasingly aware that there existed no one book that specifically provided
detailed and focused guidance on disposition and transfer evaluations. This volume is intended to fill that
void. The book is designed for use by psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and other allied mental
health professionals working in the juvenile justice system. It will likely also be of value to upper level
undergraduate students wanting to learn about forensic assessment of juveniles for the first time and for
graduate students wishing to obtain training in juvenile forensic assessment and treatment. Indeed, many
social and behavioral science doctoral programs require a practicum or internship for which it is expected that
trainees step out of their offices and conduct live evaluations with young individuals involved with the law.
Although I wrote this book for forensic clinicians at various levels of the profession, it is also meant to be
valuable to lawyers, judges, criminologists, and legal scholars who would like an insider’s view into the
thinking and science behind juvenile psychological evaluations, their interpretation, report writing, and end-
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