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The Law Meets Psychological Expertise: Eight Best Practice Considerations for Evaluating the Quality of Forensic Psychological Assessments

I've been reading the recent manuscript "The Law Meets Psychological Expertise: Eight Best Practice Considerations for Evaluating the Quality of Forensic Psychological Assessments" by Neal, Martire, Johan and Mathers. This was submitted for publication on the 17th February 2022 and it's incredibly interesting.

It outlines eight main considerations for evaluating the quality of forensic psychological assessments:

Foundational validity of the assessment
Validity of the assessment as applied
Management and mitigation of bias
Attention to quality assurance
Appropriately qualified expression of results and opinion
Explicit consideration of limitations and assumptions
Weighing alternative views or disagreements
Adherence with ethical obligations, codes of conduct and rules of evidence.

I've attached this piece to this post just in case anyone else wants to give it a read. I was just wondering what you all thought about it?

3 answers0 replies

3 Comments

Daniel Sumner

Jun 01, 2022

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This is a superb find and one that answers a multitude of questions that have appeared on this forum.

Reading this is a little unnerving considering the problematic nature of the testing and assessment procedures as used may are not standardised across locations and districts.

One important point is raised on page 16:

"...it is vital that forensic practitioners engage with and acknowledge where their views might depart from the established consensus in their field, and where their views (whether they are held by a majority or not) run counter to authoritative perspectives"

This is an issue not just for psychological science but for harder sciences too. A sharp deviation from accepted consensus is a very dangerous indicator that one may be straying into supposition. And, thus it would be helpful if one had an honest forensic psychologist who could be truthful if they are utilising different approaches or explanations than other professionals within the field.

Considering the validity of the assessments themselves, in my mind, this seems closely related to ecological validity in experimentation. What seems apparent is that there is a need to remove as much subjectivity as is possible so that when you remove the 'find the right expert' bias that is prevalent within the courtroom. Too often it seems like a lawyer whether prosecutor or defender can find the expert whose opinion matches with the lawyer's own narrative. Hopefully, by removing the subjective nature of these assessments, it would become harder to find two dissenting voices within a field.

Great find.

Thanks for sharing

Dan

michelle crowley

Jul 14, 2022

Replying to

That's an interesting observation, Dan. Perhaps rather than having the opposing legal teams appoint forensic psychologists, the Court itself should appoint forensic psychologists.