The Routledge International Handbook of Forensic Psychology in Secure Settings

Jane Ireland, Carol Ireland, Martin Fisher, Neil Gredecki, Jane Ireland, Carol Ireland, Martin Fisher, Neil Gredecki, Jane L. Ireland, Carol A. Ireland, Martin Fisher, Neil Gredecki

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781032476797
• eBook ISBN: 9781317375067
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Forensic Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The Routledge International Handbook of Forensic Psychology in Secure Settings is the first volume to identify, discuss and analyse the most important psychological issues within prisons and secure hospitals.

Including contributions from leading researchers and practitioners from the UK, US, Australia and Canada, the book covers not only the key groups that forensic psychologists work with, but also the treatment options available to them, workplace issues unique to secure settings, and some of the wider topics that impact upon offender populations. The book is divided into four sections:

• population and issues;
• treatment;
• staff and workplace issues;
• contemporary issues for forensic application.

With chapters offering both theoretical rigour and practical application, this is a unique resource that will be essential reading for any student, researcher or practitioner of forensic psychology or criminology. It will also be relevant for those interested in social policy and social care.

Part I
Populations and issues

Part I Foreword

Martin Fisher

Although approaches taken to the rehabilitation and treatment of prisoners vary enormously across legislatures internationally, the issues presenting for forensic psychology within particular groups of prisoner populations remain common. That is inherent in the nature of the work of forensic psychologists and, to some degree, it is reassuring that internationally colleagues will face the same challenges in their practice, research and interactions with those managing and overseeing custodial settings.

This section draws together expert opinion and summary of thinking and practice in respect of six key areas that present within prisoner groups internationally, and as such common issues that forensic psychologists will regularly encounter.

In the opening chapter of the section Mark E. Olver and Kiera C. Stockdale consider the issues and developing practice in relation to assessing violence risk in youth; in particular the development and application of the VRS-YV (Wong, Lewis, Stockdale & Gordon, 2004–2011) as well as other salient versions of structured professional judgements in the context of the risk need responsivity model (Andrews & Bonta, 2010). The application of the ‘central eight’ is discussed in the context of youth offending and how the ‘big four’ (a history of antisocial behaviour, antisocial personality pattern, antisocial cognitions and antisocial associates) are applied in assessing risk in youth as well as the ‘moderate four’ (substance use, family circumstances, school and leisure/recreation). In particular, prospective risk management planning for this group is critical and the need to understand and moderate practice is argued as central to successfully managing and engaging with this group.

In the second chapter of the section Ruth McCausland and Eileen Baldry discuss the particular issues that forensic psychologists face in understanding and working with issues central to female prisoners and in particular Indigenous groups within that population. The view that women prisoners have needs that mirror their male counterparts and that approaches designed for male prisoners translate effectively to women is challenged. The particular challenges of social context, paternal elitism and how those issues can be tackled successfully through greater insight, understanding and following the evidence base provides a rich discussion for forensic psychology in the area. The issues discussed are easily extrapolated to legislatures outside of the specific context described by the authors, prompting reflections on practice that have wide-ranging implications.

In the third chapter, William R. Lindsay, Amanda M. Michie, Caroline Finlay and John L. Taylor explore current practice, theory and approaches to prisoners with intellectual and developmental disorders. These aspects of prisoner presentation are receiving increasing international recognition in terms of their prevalence and complexity. The risk management processes for these prisoners require practitioners to be understanding of the often complex interface between their forensic needs and responsivity needs: the chapter provides current thinking on how best these challenges are managed for the benefit of both the person and risk management processes across violence, sexual offending, criminal thinking and fire setting.

The fourth chapter provides insights into resistance, denial and responsibility among offenders. Robert Wright and Sandra L. Schneider explore how practitioners can seek to understand these issues and how to work with them therapeutically. They argue that the challenges in themselves can become treatment aims and, through the promotion of self-examination rather than treating culpability, an end in its own right. This refreshing perspective again applies across jurisdictions and legislatures in its principles and practice.

Self-harm among people in custody presents practitioners with some of the greatest challenges in their forensic and clinical practice. In the fifth chapter of the section Greg Dear examines this issue in great detail, seeking to provide a clear argument that integrating building resilience in prisoners with work on criminogenic needs is likely to provide the most beneficial outcomes. A clear model is described that seeks to bring tighter together the various aspects of self-harming that present commonly into one coherent approach.

Finally in this section, Michael Daffern and James R. P. Ogloff consider issues arising widely with the assessment of offenders who are experiencing symptoms of mental illness. The authors argue for the need to understand better the complexities of these presentations and adapt formulations accordingly to incorporate forensic and clinical needs to generate a holistic portrayal of need. Assessing change through treatment on both group and individual bases provides the second key theme of the chapter, promoting the importance of managing therapist expectations through the examination of various information sources and thus improving the credibility and assurance levels associated with these assessments. Behaviour in custody is argued as key to this process, alongside realising meaningful dynamic assessment.

In summary this section of the handbook provides practitioners with a clear view of some of the most challenging aspects of working with people in custody. Safe and assured practice and process are key to the effective practice of forensic psychology and this section promotes and informs that practice across international boundaries through common approaches.

References

Andrews, D. A., Bonta, J. (2010). The Psychology of Criminal Conduct, fifth edition. New Providence, NJ: LexisNexis.

Wong, S., Lewis, K., Stockdale, K., Gordon, A. (2004–2011). Violence Risk Scale-Youth Version (VRS-YV). Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

1
Young High Risk Forensic Populations

Assessment, treatment and risk management

Mark E. Olver and Keira C. Stockdale

This chapter provides an overview of assessment and treatment approaches with young, high risk, forensic populations and places emphases on violent youth – those who commit serious offences such as assaults, robberies, weapons-related offences – and the intersection of research and clinical practice as applied to this population. In particular, we elaborate upon the linkages between assessment, treatment planning, and risk management within the context of the risk-need-responsivity (RNR) model of human service delivery. We illustrate these principles applied to case conceptualisation in forensic assessment and treatment planning via the framework of the Violence Risk Scale-Youth Version (VRS-YV) and a hypothetical case example. Implications for the assessment of risk relevant change and its ties to risk management are also offered. Considerations when working with special populations, such as young people who present with features of juvenile psychopathy (e.g., callous and unemotional traits), female, and ethnic minority youth, will be discussed. Finally, we conclude by identifying clinical areas for further development (e.g., protective factors, clinically significant change) and recommendations for potential applications of research to practice.

Assessment

Context of assessment with young offenders

Under what circumstances are we asked to assess risk and intervene? When does risk assessment for young offenders start? When a young person comes into contact with the law for antisocial or serious delinquent behaviour, risk assessments may be conducted for a variety of reasons. Obvious considerations are to inform sentencing (e.g., type of disposition and length) and to promote public safety, for instance, through imposing special conditions (e.g., curfews, no contact orders). Equally important purposes include the risk management and recidivism prevention function of risk assessment. Assessments can inform treatment service delivery (e.g., intensity or dosage, specialisation of services) and community supervision, all with the intention of managing and reducing risk to prevent recidivism. In the end, an ultimate goal of clinical service delivery to high risk young people is to reduce harm and prevent young offenders from becoming adult offenders.

The guiding model of risk, need, and responsivity

Andrews and Bonta’s (2010) expanded RNR model serves as a guiding model of service delivery for high risk young people in this chapter. In short, the risk principle states that the intensity of services should be matched to the recidivism risk level of the young person, such that high risk individuals receive high intensity of dosage or services and lower risk individuals receive far fewer services. The need principle asserts that treatment service delivery should prioritise dynamic risk variables or criminogenic needs for intervention; that is, those psychological, social, and environmental factors linked to the origin and maintenance of antisocial behaviour (e.g., procriminal attitudes, negative peer associates), which have the potential to change through treatment or other change agents. The responsivity principle is organised into two subtypes of responsivity. General responsivity contends that human service delivery should follow cognitive-behavioural models of behaviour change; in addition, this aspect of the responsivity principle stresses characteristics of service providers conducive to facilitating positive change in their clientele, such as being warm, empathic, caring, having a sense of humour, and adopting a firm but fair approach (Andrews, Bonta & Hoge, 1990). Specific responsivity asserts that interventions should be tailored to the unique characteristics of forensic clientele that can impact response to, and engagement in, services (e.g., literacy level, cognitive ability, motivation, and cultural background). There are additional components of the expanded 18-principle model (e.g., building on client strengths and resiliencies) that are beyond the scope of this brief review, but will be given further mention throughout the chapter.

RNR informed forensic assessment tools

The RNR model informed the development of a large number of forensic assessment tools. In turn, these informed the development of youth tools, which were essentially downward developmental modifications of their adult counterparts. We review some common forensic youth assessment tools and situate their use within the context of the juvenile justice system and service delivery for high risk young people.

First, there are clinician-rated tools designed specifically to evaluate forensic youth populations. One example includes general risk-need assessment tools such as the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI; Hoge & Andrews, 2003, 2010) and other variants of the Level of Service scales that are designed to appraise risk, identify criminogenic needs, and inform case management. The item content tends to be organised around the ‘Big Four’ (criminal history and antisocial associates, attitudes, and personality pattern) and the ‘Moderate Four’ (education/employment, family/parenting, drug and alcohol use, leisure/recreation) risk/need areas.

Specialised tools designed specifically to assess violence risk in young people and to identify targets for violence reduction interventions include the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY; Bartel, Borum & Forth, 2002) and the Violence Risk Scale-Youth Version (VRS-YV; Wong, Lewis, Stockdale & Gordon, 2004–2011). Both tools include a combination of stable/static risk factors and general and violence-specific dynamic risk indicators. Unique to the SAVRY is that it also assesses protective factors, while unique to the VRS-YV is that it includes a structured rating scheme for assessing treatment readiness and change on dynamic intervention targets.

Third, some tools are intended to assess forensically relevant personality constructs that are highly correlated with antisocial behaviour, such as the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV; Forth, Kosson & Hare, 2003), a 20-item symptom construct rating scale designed to assess the interpersonal, emotional, lifestyle, and antisocial features of juvenile psychopathy.

Finally, there are newly developed tools focusing on the assessment and management of imminent violence risk including the Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability: Adolescent Version (START:AV – general to violence to specialised). In addition to assessing risk markers that the instrument terms ‘vulnerabilities’ for violent behaviour, the START:AV also assesses ‘strengths’ or risk mitigating influences to counter vulnerabilities.

Meta-analyses (Olver, Stockdale & Wormith, 2009, 2014; Schwalbe, 2007, 2008) have been conducted on the aforementioned tools and provide broad support for their predictive accuracy for violent and general recidivism. For instance, in a meta-analysis of 49 studies, Olver et al. (2009) found comparable predictive accuracy among youth variants of the LS scales, most notably, the YLS/CMI, as well as the PCL:YV, and SAVRY for violent (r_w = .25–.30) and general recidivism (r_w = .28–.32). The effect size magnitudes were broadly equivalent for analogous tools in the adult prediction literature (see Campbell, French & Gendreau, 2009) and also did not demonstrate clear superiority of one measure over the other in terms of prediction strictly speaking, as also seen in quantitative reviews of adult tools (Yang, Wong & Coid, 2010). Moderator analyses of the assessment tools in these studies have also garnered support for the YLS/CMI and other youth variants in the prediction of recidivism outcomes for male and female youth (r_w = .33 and .36, respectively), and for racial/ethnic minority and non-minority youths (r_w = .32 and .35, respectively) (Olver et al., 2009; see also Schwalbe, 2008).

Additional assessment tools for forensic youth

Several other youth measures are commonly used in the assessment and screening of forensic populations. These are most typically self-report inventories and include general measures of adolescent personality and psychopathology such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Adolescent (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992), Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI; Millon, Millon, Davis & Grossman, 1993), Adolescent Psychopathology Scale (APS; Reynolds, 2000), Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-2 (MAYSI-2; Grisso & Barnum, 2006), and the Jesness Inventory-Revised (JI-R; Jesness, 2004) among others. In conjunction with clinical interview, these measures can aid in the identification of mental health and emotional concerns or personality patterns that can influence response to treatment and that might have linkages to criminal behaviour. There is limited and inconsistent support that these measures predict recidivism, but it is important to bear in mind that they were not developed for that purpose, in contrast to many of the aforementioned clinician-rated forensic risk tools. These self-report measures might assist in identifying other, non-criminogenic treatment needs, such as clinical syndromes associated with a high level of personal distress (e.g., anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, eating pathology, traumatic stress) that might or might not be linked to criminal behaviour, yet have significant bearing on the young person’s emotional and psychosocial well-being.

Cognitive ability measures, such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, now in its fifth edition (Wechsler, 2014), or other more specific measures of ability (e.g., memory, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Preface
• PART I Populations and issues
• PART II Treatment
• PART III Staff and workplace issues
• PART IV Contemporary issues for forensic application
• Index