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Public Significance Statement This meta-analysis shows that the Structured Assessment of Protective Factors for violence risk (SAPROF), a risk assessment tool that focuses exclusively on protective factors, can significantly predict the absence of violent behavior in an institution and after discharge into the community. It highlights the importance of adding dynamic protective factors to structured risk assessment to lower the risk of future violence.Although the inclusion of protective factors in risk assessment is believed to improve prediction, most risk assessment tools emphasize risk factors. In response, the Structured Assessment of Protective Factors for violence risk (SAPROF) has been developed, which focuses exclusively on protective factors and is used in conjunction with a structured risk assessment tool. It has received increasing attention from both researchers and forensic mental health practitioners, and additional versions have been developed for use with adolescents (SAPROF-YV) and sex offenders (SAPROF-SO). To assess their psychometric performance, we conducted a meta-analysis of validation studies. Our final sample included 39 articles with 5,434 subjects from 16 countries. Overall, the SAPROF(-YV/-SO) showed good interrater reliability and moderate-to-good predictive performance for the absence of recidivism and institutional misconduct. All three instruments exhibited incremental validity when used in conjunction with a risk-focused assessment tool. Our meta-analysis additionally showed that changes on the SAPROF are associated with decreased violent and general recidivism after controlling for baseline risk. We also uncovered several shortcomings in current research with the SAPROF(-YV/-SO). Studies did not report calibration indices and most studies were retrospective and limited to male offenders. The present findings provide support for the relevance of protective factors in risk assessment, but future research should focus on their hypothesized role in treatment and risk management.

The special issue editors selected us to form an "adversarial collaboration" because our publications and teaching encompass both supportive and critical attitudes toward the Rorschach and its recently developed system for use, the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS). We reviewed the research literature and case law to determine if the Rorschach and specifically R-PAS meet legal standards for admissibility in court. We included evidence on norms, reliability, validity, utility, general acceptance, forensic evaluator use, and response style assessment, as well as United States and selected European case law addressing challenges to mental examination motions, admissibility, and weight. Compared to other psychological tests, the Rorschach is not challenged at unusually high rates. Although the recently introduced R-PAS is not widely referenced in case law, evidence suggests that information from it is likely to be ruled admissible when used by a competent evaluator and selected variables yield scores that are sufficiently reliable and valid to evaluate psychological processes that inform functional psycholegal capacities. We identify effective and ethical but also inappropriate uses (e.g., psychological profiling) of R-PAS in criminal, civil, juvenile, and family court. We recommend specific research to clarify important aspects of R-PAS and advance its utility in forensic mental health assessment.

Abstract. Over the years, a significant number of Rorschach studies have been conducted with forensic adult and adolescent samples, partly motivated by the use of the test in forensic psychological evaluations. Could the Rorschach, as a performance-based personality assessment tool, provide unique information that is not as vulnerable to distortion on the part of the examinee as self-report measures are? This article provides a review of Rorschach studies on relevant Rorschach variables, including those with different forensic samples. Empirical findings are mixed; there is not a one-on-one relationship between certain Rorschach variables and forensically relevant traits, such as psychopathy or hostility. This does not mean the Rorschach cannot provide useful information in answering psychological questions before the court. A case illustration of a male college student, who committed a (first) violent offense, illustrates the unique contribution of the Rorschach for understanding the psychological dynamics behind a violent act that was seemingly out of character.

We report findings from a survey of Dutch forensic mental health practitioners (N = 110) about use and the perceived utility of specific structured risk assessment instruments (SRAIs) for forensic risk evaluations (FREs). Overall, respondents’ views of specific SRAIs were positive. They had concerns about potential bias and errors in FREs. Yet, contrary to prior surveys, we found no evidence for the tendency to think of oneself as less prone to bias than others, known as the bias blind spot. Similar to previous surveys, our respondents also endorsed introspection as an effective method to mitigate bias, whereas research indicates it is not. Finally, they rated SRAIs as the most effective debiasing strategy. We found few differences in beliefs about bias or debiasing strategies between respondents who had cognitive bias training and those who had not, suggesting the need for research to gain insight into effective debiasing strategies and the development of specific forensic bias training.

There is emerging evidence that the performance of risk assessment instruments is weaker when used for clinical decision‐making than for research purposes. For instance, research has found lower agreement between evaluators when the risk assessments are conducted during routine practice. We examined the field interrater reliability of the Short‐Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability: Adolescent Version (START:AV). Clinicians in a Dutch secure youth care facility completed START:AV assessments as part of the treatment routine. Consistent with previous literature, interrater reliability of the items and total scores was lower than previously reported in non‐field studies. Nevertheless, moderate to good interrater reliability was found for final risk judgments on most adverse outcomes. Field studies provide insights into the actual performance of structured risk assessment in real‐world settings, exposing factors that affect reliability. This information is relevant for those who wish to implement structured risk assessment with a level of reliability that is defensible considering the high stakes.

High Conflict Divorce as a Complex Family Problem: Why Domestic Violence Screening is Essential High Conflict Divorce form 20% of separations that involve children. These parents continue to litigate child custody and parenting arrangements, and accuse each other of child abuse, intimate partner violence, and mental health problems. The children suffer because of longstanding animosity. In this contribution, we report on a pilot study among 102 parents in a high conflict divorce, assessed at the Child Protection Council, Safe Home, or a child welfare service. The MASIC, a structured screening interview for intimate partner violence (IPV), was administered to each parent separately. Results revealed that the prevalence of different types of IPV was extremely high in our sample, and the violence kept occurring after the divorce, albeit somewhat less frequently. Our findings largely concur with international research in this area. In particular, the presence of coercive controlling violence perpetrated by one of the ex-partners, should prompt the professional to conduct further evaluation of parental and child safety. The type of IPV that emerges from the MASIC screening has implications for the advice to the parents and the family court.

A recent offender rehabilitation theory, the ‘Good Lives Model’ (GLM), states that effective interventions should not only focus on risk factors, but also on improving well-being by meeting a universal set of human needs, such as relatedness with friends and family, inner peace and excellence in agency, called ‘primary goods’. Little empirical research however exists examining the GLM's underlying etiological assumptions, especially for youngsters. Due to their developmental phase, adolescents may have different needs or they may prioritize them differently compared to adults. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of the existing literature on adolescent well-being. A multi-level meta-analysis was conducted to assess the extent to which the 11 GLM primary goods are related to overall subjective well-being in adolescents. We systematically searched databases for terms related to well-being and adolescence, resulting in 139 publications included in the meta-analysis. Almost all of the GLM primary goods were related to subjective well-being in adolescents. Some goods however may be more salient or manifest themselves differently in this particular development phase. Offender rehabilitation interventions should carefully assess which primary goods are important for the youngster, how they (try to) achieve them and in which way the goods are related to their delinquent behavior.

The Child Abuse Risk Evaluation – Dutch version (CARE-NL) is a structured professional guideline for assessing the risk of all types of child abuse. The CARE-NL comprises 18 risk factors: eight Parental characteristics, three Parent-Child interaction factors, five Family factors, one Child vulnerability factor, and an extra factor for child sexual abuse risk. We examined interrater reliability and predictive accuracy of the instrument in a retrospective study at Advice and Reporting Centers on Child Abuse (ARCCA) in The Netherlands. The ARCCA files contained limited information on Parental risk factors, while parental characteristics, such as mental disorder and substance abuse, are the most important risk factors for repeated) child abuse. On the other hand, the majority of the files included ample information on child and family characteristics. The CARE-NL could be reliably coded by trained raters and the predictive accuracy for out-of-home placement (AUC = .73) and placement of the child under court supervision (AUC = .78), at two years follow-up, was adequate. Use of the CARE-NL ensures that the assessment of the risk of child abuse focuses on the most important, empiricallybased risk factors in a structured and coherent way.

Early detection of child abuse risk factors in families of new-born babies is an important task of the public youth health care system in the Netherlands. The Early Risks of Physical Abuse and Neglect Scale (ERPANS) was originally developed in Belgium as an observation scale for public child healthcare nurses. The present longitudinal study is an independent prospective validation of the ERPANS in a Dutch community sample (N = 1257) of families with a new-born. Results showed a commonality of underlying subsets of items belonging to the 'Disturbed parent-child relationship' and 'Psychological problems' factors, but the factor 'Communication problems' of the original ERPANS could not be replicated. We found that parental psychological problems were a significant predictor of family problems, including involvement of child protection authorities, at an average follow-up of 22 months. Parents who reported feeling unloved by their own parents were at higher risk of reports of serious concern to child protection authorities at 22 months after birth. These findings support the utility of at least a subset of the ERPANS items as a screening tool for child abuse risk in preventive public youth health care for new-born babies. Our research adds to a growing body of evidence which points to the importance of parental mental health problems and adverse childhood experiences as precursors to child abuse risk.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by a mix of traits belonging to four facets: affective (e.g., callous/lack of empathy), interpersonal (e.g., grandiosity), behavioral instability (e.g., impulsivity, poor behavioral controls), and social deviance (e.g., juvenile delinquency, criminal versatility). Several scholars have argued that early childhood maltreatment impacts the development of psychopathy, although views regarding its role in the four facets differ. We conducted a meta-analysis including 47 studies comprising a total of 389 effect sizes and 12,737 participants, to investigate the association between psychopathy and four types of child maltreatment: physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse. We found support for a moderate link between overall psychopathy and childhood physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect, as well as overall childhood maltreatment. The link between psychopathy and childhood sexual abuse was small, but still statistically significant. These associations were stronger for the behavioral and antisocial facets than for the affective and interpersonal facets of psychopathy, but nearly all associations were statistically significant. Our findings are consistent with recently developed theories on the role of complex trauma in the development of severe personality disorders. Trauma-focused preventive and therapeutic interventions can provide further tests of the trauma-psychopathy hypothesis.

SummaryThe HCR-20 has taken on a life of its own. In forensic services it has been elevated from helpful aide-mémoire into a prophetic tool worthy of Nostradamus himself. Almost every outcome is interpreted through it. Despite the evidence of its limited utility, the difficulties of predicting rare events, the narrative fallacies and other heuristic biases it creates, and the massive opportunity costs it entails, commissioners and services alike mandate its use. Yet in routine practice the problems are not acknowledged, multiple conflicts of interest lie unobserved and other opportunities are neglected.

Previous research has shown that mock and actual jurors give little weight to actuarial sexual offending recidivism risk estimates when making decisions regarding civil commitment for so-called sexually violent predators (SVPs). We hypothesized that non-risk related factors, such as irrelevant contextual information and jurors' information-processing style, would influence mock jurors' perceptions of sexual recidivism risk. This preregistered experimental study examined the effects of mock jurors' (N = 427) need for cognition (NFC), irrelevant contextual information in the form of the offender's social attractiveness, and an actuarial risk estimate on mock jurors' estimates of sexual recidivism risk related to a simulated SVP case vignette. Mock jurors exposed to negative risk-irrelevant characteristics of the offender estimated sexual recidivism risk as higher than mock jurors exposed to positive information about the offender. However, this effect was no longer significant after mock jurors had reviewed Static-99R actuarial risk estimate information. We found no support for the hypothesis that the level of NFC moderates the relationship between risk-irrelevant contextual information and risk estimates. Future research could explore additional individual characteristics or attitudes among mock jurors that may influence perceptions of sexual recidivism risk and insensitivity to actuarial risk estimates.

De meeste risicotaxatie-instrumenten voor jongeren in de jeugdzorg beoordelen het risico op één schadelijke uitkomst, zoals gewelddadig gedrag. Maar er zijn meer soorten risicovol gedrag. De short-term assessment of risk and treatability: adolescenten versie (start:av) beoordeelt zowel het risico op dader- als slachtofferschap.

The most recent conceptualizations of empathy recognize affective empathy as distinct from cognitive empathy. Consequently, instruments that assess these 2 types of empathy have been developed. Among them, the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE) is a particularly promising, relatively new, self-report measure consisting of 31 items. To examine the cross-cultural adaptability of the QCAE, we investigated the psychometric properties of an Italian version in 2 samples and with 2 different formats of administration. Study 1 (n = 407) used archival data collected via paper and pencil; Study 2 (n = 285) used newly collected data, obtained with an online format. In these studies, in addition to the QCAE, 6 other instruments measuring empathy-related constructs (i.e., interpersonal competence, well-being, personality traits, emotion regulation, alexithymia, and emotion recognition) were administered, too. Data analysis focused on factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent validity. The findings of both studies provide support for the cross-cultural applicability of the QCAE, and reveal interesting associations between empathy and the other constructs under examination.

This study examined the perceived costs, benefits, and motivations for participating in individual trauma-focused interviews among forensic psychiatric patients ( N = 74). The majority of our participants were male, and 100% endorsed adverse childhood experiences (e.g., abuse, neglect) or exposure to potentially traumatic events (e.g., assault). Levels of posttraumatic avoidance (41.9%), reexperiencing (59.5%), and increased arousal (51.3%) were high. In line with previous studies, our findings suggest an overall positive research experience in this sample. In spite of extensive histories of lifetime victimization we did not find an association between victimization, posttraumatic symptomatology, and a negative research experience. Our findings suggest that participation in trauma-focused research is not only possible with, but also potentially beneficial for forensic patients.

Antecedentes. La valoración del riesgo de violencia es un requisito fundamental en la toma de decisiones profesionales que implican prevenir, intervenir o informar sobre la conducta de las personas. El uso de herramientas estructuradas de evaluación del riesgo de violencia ha mostrado mejoría en la precisión de las evaluaciones basadas exclusivamente en el juicio clínico o en la pericia de un experto en contextos psiquiátricos, penitenciarios y jurídicos.Objetivo. Este estudio presenta los resultados de la primera encuesta sobre las prácticas profesionales asociadas al uso de herramientas de evaluación del riesgo de violencia en España.Materiales y métodos. La información fue recogida mediante la administración de una encuesta en internet que fue distribuida por correo electrónico a los miembros de organizaciones profesionales.Resultados. De manera similar a los contextos profesionales del resto del mundo, las escalas de psicopatía de Robert Hare (Psychopathy Checklist-Revised y Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version) y el Historical-Clinical-Risk Management-20 encabezaron la lista de las herramientas más usadas tanto por elección personal como por requisito institucional.Conclusiones. Se ofrecen datos novedosos sobre la prevalencia de uso y la utilidad percibida de las herramientas estructuradas, así como sobre otras cuestiones relacionadas a las prácticas profesionales de evaluación del riesgo de violencia en España que pueden orientar tanto a los profesionales de contextos sanitarios, correccionales y forenses, como a los responsables de las instituciones en la elección de las herramientas a implementar para asistirlos en la toma de decisiones. Background. Violence risk assessment is a key requirement in professional decision making involving prevention, intervention or reporting on human behavior. The use of structured tools for violence risk assessment has shown to improve the accuracy of assessments based exclusively on clinical judgment or expertise in psychiatric, correctional and legal settings.Objectives. This study presents results of the first survey about professional practices associated with tools for violence risk assessment in Spain.Materials and methods. The information was collected by administering an online-based survey that was distributed by e-mail to members of professional organizations around the country.Results. As in professional contexts worldwide, the Robert Hare's psychopathy scales (Psychopathy Checklist-Revised and Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version) and the Historical-Clinical-Risk Management-20 topped the list of the most used tools both by professional choice and institutional requirement.Conclusions. We provide novel data on the prevalence of use and the perceived utility of specific tools, as well as on other issues related to the professional practice of violence risk assessment in Spain, which can guide professional in the health care, correctional and forensic settings, as well as those responsible for decisions in institutions about choosing which tool to implement.

Het maken van beleid om kindermishandeling en seksueel misbruik van kinderen te bestrijden is niet zo moeilijk. Wet- en regelgeving realiseren die de uitvoering van het nieuwe beleid mogelijk maakt, is minder eenvoudig. In sommige gevallen is het nieuwe beleid tegenstrijdig aan bestaande wetgeving. Het gevolg is dat mishandelde en misbruikte kinderen niet de bescherming krijgen die ze nodig hebben. De auteurs werken twee voorbeelden uit waarin het ‘nieuwe’ beleid niet ondersteund wordt door bestaande wet- en regelgeving. Het eerste voorbeeld heeft betrekking op de manier waarop de DBC-systematiek in de ggz drempels opwerpt voor de inzet van specialisten bij kindermishandeling, het tweede voorbeeld gaat over de dilemma’s die het dubbele toestemmingsvereiste met zich meebrengt bij kindermishandeling. Dit artikel is een oproep aan de Rijksoverheid en andere betrokkenen om deze cultuur daadkrachtig te bestrijden en wet- en regelgeving af te stemmen op de huidige beleidsuitgangspunten.

Purpose. Current knowledge suggests that the psychopathy construct is multifaceted in nature, and reflects different underlying pathological mechanisms, including neurobiological dysfunction and maladaptive cognitions. Although many contemporary studies focus on neurobiological aspects of psychopathy, few have addressed the maladaptive cognitions.Method. In this study, we examined facets of Hare's psychopathy construct in terms of their associations with maladaptive cognitions, as defined by Young's cognitive theory of Early Maladaptive Schemas (EMS). Personality disordered offenders (N = 124) were assessed with the PCL-R and the Young Schema Questionnaire.Results. The PCL-R Lifestyle and Antisocial Facets were significantly related to EMS Mistrust/Abuse and Insufficient Self-Control, consistent with our hypotheses, and were significantly, but negatively, related to EMS Subjugation. Also as hypothesized, EMS showed no associations with the PCL-R Affective and Interpersonal facets. Contrary to our expectation, EMS did not predict institutional violence.Conclusion. Our findings suggest that schemas relating to mistrust, inadequate self-control/low frustration tolerance, and autonomy/dominance, play a role in the impulsive lifestyle and antisocial behaviour features of psychopathy. Treatments that focus on ameliorating these schemas may lead to better outcomes in psychopathic offenders.

A limited number of studies have shown that adults and adolescents with psychopathic traits suffer from emotional memory impairment. The present study examined whether this finding could be replicated in a sample of children between 8 and 12?years of age with callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Children with high CU traits (n?=?24) were compared with children with low CU traits (n?=?18) with regard to performance on a peripheral memory recognition test that examined memory for central and peripheral components of neutral and negative pictures. Results showed that overall recognition rates did not differ between the high- and low-CU groups. For negative pictures, both groups demonstrated better recognition of the central component at the expense of the peripheral component, while for neutral pictures, the peripheral component was better recognized than the central component. This study is the first to demonstrate that children with high CU traits do not suffer from an impaired emotional memory. Copyright (C) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Research on resiliency and recovery in forensic psychiatric patients is still limited. Information pertaining to factors associated with successful community reintegration would contribute to a more comprehensive assessment of functioning and informed treatment planning that fits within a recovery approach of service provision. Using a retrospective design involving file reviews and a 3-year follow-up period, the authors investigated the rate of successful/unsuccessful community reintegration (defined by the presence or absence of an absolute discharge/readmission to hospital) in female forensic psychiatric patients (N=48). The study evaluated the extent to which the risk and protective factors captured in the Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) predicted a range of positive and negative outcomes in the study sample. Results showed that 47.9% of the women qualified as having successfully reintegrated into the community, with the remaining 52.1% qualifying as still being in recovery. Successful individuals possessed significantly more protective factors and significantly fewer risk factors than individuals still in recovery. Furthermore, both the vulnerability and the strength scale of the START demonstrated good predictive validity, however we did not find evidence of incremental validity of the strength scale. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Evaluating research on recidivism rates, it is apparent that approximately 52% of the general offender population, between 31% and 85% of mentally ill offenders, and as many as 70–87% of forensic patients do not reoffend within two to five years after release (Bonta, Law, & Hanson, 1998; Douglas, Ogloff, & Hart, 2003; Harris, Rice, & Cormier, 2002; Peersen, Sigurdsson, Gudjonsson, & Gretarsson, 2004; Poporino & Motiuk, 1995). Factors such as previous offending behavior and criminal justice involvement are well recognized as strong predictors of future offending. By definition, then, forensic patients and other individuals with a history of coming into conflict with the law are already at an elevated risk for offending and violence than individuals without a criminal history. Yet even within such high-risk populations, many at-risk

In this article, the structured assessment of protective factors for violence risk (saprof), a structured professional guideline for protective factors, is introduced and the incremental value of this instrument for treatment planning and risk management in forensic settings is discussed. The most important goal of the standardized assessment of protective factors is to complement violence risk assessment resulting in a more balanced and possibly more accurate risk assessment. Furthermore, the positive, strengths-focused approach of the saprof may be motivating for both staff and patients, leading to more elaborate and patient-adjusted risk management strategies and improved risk communication.

Parent management training oregon (pmto) is een therapie voor ouders van kinderen van 4 tot 12 jaar met ernstige externaliserende gedragsproblemen. Pmto onderscheidt zich van andere ouderinterventies door de langdurige, intensieve opleiding van pmto-therapeuten, de relatief intensieve werkbegeleiding na de opleiding en de strenge kwaliteitsbewaking van de uitvoering. In het buitenland is de effectiviteit van pmto al meerdere malen aangetoond. In nederland doet de universiteit maastricht experimenteel effectonderzoek naar de effectiviteit van pmto.

Purpose. In community-based forensic psychiatry, patients' social ties are considered as protective factor in a risk management strategy. However, it is unknown whether these ties actually assist patients to refrain from re-offending. We hypothesised a protective role for social ties in re-offending behaviour.Methods. In a sample of forensic outpatients with a personality disorder (N = 55), the relationship between social ties (social contacts and participation in social institutions) and short-term self-reported re-offences was studied within a prospective study design with a 6-month follow-up period.Results. Our results provide evidence for a protective function of club participation. For violent re-offences, social institutions were protective and this protective function remained, even when a patient had network members with a criminal background. Except for work-related contacts, social contacts did not provide protection.Conclusions. The protective effect of social ties, especially club participation, on desistance from re-offending in forensic psychiatric patients merits further attention from researchers and clinicians.

Over the last few decades, quality of life (QoL) has become an important outcome measure for treatment success in general psychiatry So far, this is not the case in forensic psychiatry, although several (treatment) models include factors related to QoL, such as the good lives model In this study, we investigated change in QoL over a 6-month treatment period in 102 forensic outpatients with personality disorders (PDs) or traits of PDs To this end, the extended Dutch version of the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile was used Objective indicators of QoL did not change during these 6 months, with one exception Significantly more patients reported to have a helping friend at the second time point Eight of 10 subjective indicators of QoL changed differentially for patients with different baseline levels of QoL Those with low scores showed significant improvement on nine indicators, whereas those with high scores reported a lower QoL after 6 months on five indicators Treatment intensity, mood and severity of PD did not mediate these changes Subjective QoL deserves consideration as an important theoretical construct in forensic treatment and the Lancashire QoL Profile is sensitive to change during such treatment Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

In the present study, a structured risk assessment instrument for intimate partner violence, the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER), was coded for 146 files of spousal assault cases from the Dutch probation service, dating from 2004 and 2005. The aim of the study was twofold: (a) to validate Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart’s typology using the risk factors of the B-SAFER and (b) to examine the relationship between the subtypes found and recidivism rates. Four subtypes of assaulters were identified: family only, generally violent/antisocial, low-level antisocial, and psychopathology. These subtypes were comparable to the subtypes found in previous studies. The generally violent/antisocial subtype had the highest recidivism rate, although not significantly different from the other three subtypes.

This study examined the impact of protective factors, assessed by means of the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY), on desistance from violent reoffending in adolescents. Three samples included male adolescents in different stages of the judicial process: pre-trial ( n = 111); during residential treatment ( n = 66); and after release from a juvenile justice facility ( n = 47). The results lend support to the hypothesis that protective factors buffer or mitigate the risk of violent reoffending. Using regression analyses, in all samples, the addition of protective factors yielded a significant increment in the amount of variance explained by dynamic risk factors alone. Furthermore, in medium to high risk subgroups, the violent reoffending rate was significantly higher when protective factors were absent, compared to when protective factors were present. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for risk assessment and risk management practice with adolescent offenders.

Steeds meer gz-psychologen zijn werkzaam in de forensische sector, en dat aantal zal de komende jaren zeker nog toenemen getuige de prognoses. Daar staat tegenover dat in Nederland op dit moment het opleidingsaanbod op het gebied van de forensische psychologie (nog) beperkt is. Forensische casuistiek is bijna altijd complex en doet een maximaal beroep op de kennis en het analytisch/kritisch denkvermogen van de psycholoog die de forensische client diagnostisch onderzoekt of behandelt. In deze serie worden aan de hand van gevalsstudies belangrijke thema’s uit de forensische psychologie belicht.

The present study examines the reliability and construct validity of the Dutch version of the Psychopathy Check List: Youth Version (PCL:YV) in a sample of male adolescents admitted to a secure juvenile justice treatment institution ( N = 98). Hare's four-factor model is used to examine reliability and validity of the separate dimensions of psychopathy. Interrater reliabilities are good to excellent for the PCL:YV total score and most factor scores, except for the affective factor. Several suggestions are offered for optimizing reliability of this factor. Finally, meaningful associations between PCL:YV scores and scores on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory—Adolescent and the Interpersonal Checklist—Revised support the construct validity of the PCL:YV total score as well as the four factors in the Dutch context.

Subjective well-being is a common outcome measure in the evaluation of treatment in general psychiatry, but not yet in forensic psychiatry. The impact of quality of life, defined in terms of objective indicators and subjective well-being, on criminal recidivism is unknown. Several criminological theories, such as Ward's good lives model, point at a possible relationship. In a study of male forensic psychiatric outpatients suffering from personality disorders, the quality of life of sexual and violent offenders was compared, using the Dutch version of the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile. The results indicated that although sexual offenders and violent offenders hardly differed on objective indicators of quality of life, their judgments of their subjective well-being differed significantly. Sexual offenders were more satisfied in general and in particular with their family relationships, safety, and health. For both groups, different objective and subjective indicators correlated with global well-being. Assessment of domain-specific objective and subjective issues and global well-being, at the beginning of treatment, may improve the effectiveness of treatment and the quality of life of the forensic patient.

Anne van den Berg uit in bovengenoemd artikel forse kritiek op het ‘risicotaxatiedenken’ in de Nederlandse forensische psychiatrie, in het bijzonder in de tbs-instellingen.

In dit artikel wordt een gestructureerde richtlijn voor protectieve factoren, de Structured assessment of protective factors for violence risk (SAPROF) geintroduceerd en het belang ervan uiteengezet voor de behandeling in de forensische setting. Belangrijke doelen van het op gestandaardiseerde wijze beschouwen van protectieve factoren zijn: de risicotaxatie van (seksueel) gewelddadig gedrag completeren, waardoor deze evenwichtiger en wellicht accurater wordt, concrete richtlijnen bieden voor behandeling en aldus de motivatie van patienten en behandelaars bevorderen.

The present prospective study examined the predictive validity of the Dutch version of the Psychopathy Check List: Youth Version for disruptive behavior in male adolescents during treatment. The study comprised two samples admitted to different secure treatment institutions in The Netherlands, Jongerenhuis Harreveld (n = 81) and Rentray (n = 66). Overall, the results demonstrate that psychopathy is a significant predictor of institutional disruptive behavior, and physical violence in particular. Furthermore, Hare's traditional Factor 2 was more strongly related to disruptive incidents than Factor 1. By using the recently proposed three- and four-factor models of psychopathy, insight into the pattern of associations between psychopathy dimensions and different types of disruptive behavior was obtained. The antisocial dimension of psychopathy appeared to be more strongly related to severe incidents than the lifestyle dimension. Regression analyses identified significant contributions of the antisocial and lifestyle dimensions to the prediction of incidents. The relatively small degree of variance explained underlines the importance of other risk factors to identify adolescents at risk of disruptive behavior during institutional treatment.

This chapter discusses the case of domestic estrangement and familicide. Richard reported that his wife and her two daughters were missing from their middle-class home. Reports on the disappearance trickled down in the media, and what started as a tale of a sorrowful husband ended in a story that included marital estrangement, an extramarital affair, and the brutal killing of his wife and daughters at the hands of their husband and father. The chapter presents how the author studied the police files and the previous mental health reports to gain an initial impression of Richard's and others' statements to the police about his life and his offence. It summarizes the account Richard gave of the events, along with observations his parents made in the days after the supposed disappearance of Karen and the children. The chapter concludes that integration of empirical evidence with the findings from forensic psychological assessment increases our understanding of the perpetrator and his offence.

This chapter presents empirical research on the quality of forensic reports; discuss the essential qualities of a good forensic report and common errors, with examples from practice. Initially the chapter explains the outcome of violence risk assessment in forensic reports and the basic structure of a forensic report in criminal cases. Then the chapter covers the findings from the psychological tests and the findings from the different data sources into a coherent picture. It also provides a brief review of the present state of the research literature on violence risk communication, revealing the ongoing debate among scholars on this issue. The chapter concludes that forensic report writing is both a science and an art, in need of continuing critical reflection by forensic evaluators, because of the impact of these reports on the lives of the assesses.

This chapter explains about individuals who have committed a serious crime on account of a serious mental disorder or defective development including a personality disorder or severe intellectual disability. First the chapter provides an overview of the Dutch forensic mental health system then presents an approach towards assessment findings and illustrates the importance of objective forensic mental health assessments by independent experts in cases where a patient has been assigned the label permanently at risk. It also deals with Psychological Test Findings, Rorschach Inkblot Method Test, SIDP-IV Interview and Risk Assessment. It also evaluates the use of standardized; objective tools for psychological and risk assessment, revealed the absence of serious mental disorder and high recidivism risk. The chapter concludes the need for independent forensic assessment and the risk of mixing the roles of forensic assessor and treating clinician.

This chapter discusses the case of Kim, whose two children had apparently been stabbed to death multiple times in their own beds. This case of filicide or false confession, having access to the social network analysis report provided the author with the necessary information from collateral sources. There are three types of false confession. The first type is the voluntary false confession, in which a person claims responsibility for a crime without pressure from the police. The second is that people make choices that maximize comfort, given a specific situation, which means they prefer delayed punishment to immediate aversive stimulation. The third type is the coerced-internalized false confession, in which an individual not only confesses but also comes to believe that he/she committed the crime, sometimes even offering pseudo-memories. The author's diagnostic conclusion was that Kim showed symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression at the time of his assessment of her.

In this prospective study, the Dutch version of the HCR-20 (an instrument assessing risk factors for violence in the past, present and future) was coded independently by three rater groups (researchers, treatment supervisors and group leaders) for 127 male mentally disordered offenders admitted to a forensic psychiatric hospital. During case conferences, the three raters discussed their ratings and reached consensus on their ratings and final risk judgment. HCR-20 ratings were related to incidents of physical violence during treatment. Overall, the predictive validity of the HCR-20 was good. We found no differences between researchers and treatment supervisors in predictive accuracy. Group leaders performed worse compared to the other two rater groups. The consensus rating was the best predictor. Implications for structured violence risk assessment in clinical practice are discussed.

This study examined the role of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991) and sexual deviance scores in predicting recidivism in a sample of 94 convicted rapists involuntarily admitted to a Dutch forensic psychiatric hospital between 1975 and 1996. The predictive utility of grouping offenders based on the combination of psychopathy and sexual deviance was also investigated. Measures were coded from prerelease institutional records. Recidivism (reconviction) data were retrieved from the Judicial Documentation Register of the Ministry of Justice and were related to PCL-R and sexual deviance scores. The follow-up period after release ranged up to 23.5 years (M = 11.8 years). Base rates for sexual, violent nonsexual, violent (including sexual), and general recidivism were 34%, 47%, 55%, and 73%, respectively. For all types of offending, offenders scoring high on the PCL-R (¡Ý26) were significantly more often reconvicted than other offenders. The sexual deviance score was found to be a significant predictor of sexual reconviction. Survival analyses provided considerable evidence that psychopathic sex offenders with sexual deviant preferences are at substantially greater risk of committing new sexual offenses than psychopathic offenders without deviant preferences or nonpsychopathic offenders with or without sexual deviance. The findings are discussed in terms of their practical and clinical implications. This study examined the role of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991) and sexual deviance scores in predicting recidivism in a sample of 94 convicted rapists involuntarily admitted to a Dutch forensic psychiatric hospital between 1975 and 1996. The predictive utility of grouping offenders based on the combination of psychopathy and sexual deviance was also investigated. Measures were coded from prerelease institutional records. Recidivism (reconviction) data were retrieved from the Judicial Documentation Register of the Ministry of Justice and were related to PCL-R and sexual deviance scores. The follow-up period after release ranged up to 23.5 years (M = 11.8 years). Base rates for sexual, violent nonsexual, violent (including sexual), and general recidivism were 34%, 47%, 55%, and 73%, respectively. For all types of offending, offenders scoring high on the PCL-R (¡Ý26) were significantly more often reconvicted than other offenders. The sexual deviance score was found to be a significant predictor of sexual reconviction. Survival analyses provided considerable evidence that psychopathic sex offenders with sexual deviant preferences are at substantially greater risk of committing new sexual offenses than psychopathic offenders without deviant preferences or nonpsychopathic offenders with or without sexual deviance. The findings are discussed in terms of their practical and clinical implications.

To investigate the effect of the mental representation of attachment on information processing, 28 anxiety disorder outpatients, as diagnosed by the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule—Revised, were administered the Adult Attachment Interview and the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory. They also completed an emotional Stroop task with subliminal and supraliminal exposure conditions, a free recall memory task, and a recognition test. All tasks contained threatening, neutral, and positively valenced stimuli. A nonclinical comparison group of 56 participants completed the same measures. Results on the Stroop task showed color-naming interference for threatening words in the supraliminal condition only. Nonclinical participants with insecure attachment representations showed a global response inhibition to the Stroop task. Clinical participants with secure attachment representations showed the largest Stroop interference of the threatening words compared to the other groups. Results on the free recall task showed superior recall of all types of stimuli by participants with secure attachment representations. In the outpatient group, participants with secure attachment representations showed superior recall of threatening words on the free recall task, compared to insecure participants. Results on the recognition task showed no differences between attachment groups. We conclude that secure attachment representations are characterized by open communication about and processing of threatening information, leading to less defensive exclusion of negative material during the attentional stage of information processing and to better recall of threatening information in a later stage. Attachment insecurity, but not the type of insecurity, seems a decisive factor in attention and memory processes.

This article describes the necessity of standardised assessment of violence risk in juvenile offenders. So far such an assessment procedure is lacking in The Netherlands and also international forensic research on this topic is still in a very early stage. First, some methodological issues concerning registration of violence are discussed and an overview of the prevalence of violence and violent recidivism in The Netherlands is presented. Risk assessment is important for risk management. Especially in youth, risk assessment should provide information about dynamic risk factors and protective factors, which may change over time. A number of risk assessment instruments are discussed, with special emphasis on the savry, because this instrument fulfils the special requirements for risk assessment in youth. The article ends with some implications for risk assessment in the forensic practice.