Evaluation of Criminal Responsibility (Best Practices in Forensic Mental Health Assessments)

It met all expectations

This crisp little manual provides a balanced summary of the case law, empirical research, and developing practice standards for conducting insanity evaluations. Ira Packer, an award-winning scholar and long-time leader in the field of forensic psychology, brings a wealth of wisdom and experience to this topic. His discussions of controversial topics, such as whether to provide an "ultimate issue" opinion and how to approach the possibility of malingering, are especially balanced and nuanced.Criminal responsibility evaluations are difficult endeavors both because of their retrospective nature, and also because we can never know for sure what was going on in someone else's head, especially when that person may have understandable reasons to distort. Dr. Packer offers a hypothesis-testing model in which we try to determine which explanation most parsimoniously fits with the accumulated data, while still acknowledging alternatives and limitations. In delineating common interpretation errors in criminal responsibility evaluations (e.g., illusory correlation and overreaching), the author repeatedly stresses the importance of qualifying our opinions and not leaping from the data to a single, unitary conclusion.This is yet another excellent offering in the Best Practices in Forensic Mental Health Assessment series (see my other reviews for other entries in the series, all but one of which received highly favorable ratings from me). Clearly written and well indexed, this manual is a three-in-one special: It is a good starting point for novice practitioners, a useful review source for experienced forensic psychologists, and an excellent teaching tool for use in classrooms or at internship training sites.

The basics that everyone entering this field needs to know with references needed for advancing knowledge.