Question

Forensic Psychology: Psychological Consulting

Explain what risk assessment is and the importance of in our courts.

Choose one risk assessment tool and explain its benefits and its limitations.

How does Duty to Warn come into play here?

Answer 1

Risk assessment is concerned with calculating the chances of antisocial or criminal behavior . It is used to determine how likely a convicted offender is to recommit a crime. It is used by some court to determine the type of prison and in some cases it affects the length and nature of sentence .

Risk assessment tool is violence risk assessment guide , VRAG. It is an actuarial method where conclusion is reached based on statistics of historical data. For example , younger criminal tend to commit crime again when set free.

This is most used , transparent and highest predictive reliability. But it's limitation is that it rely on other tools such as PCR TEST , psychopathy checklist-revised.

Duty to warn is the concept that suggest a therapist must warn all the individual and potential victim of intent of a patient to harm these Individual when therapist is convinced that patient has capability to do so.

In this case , forensic expert and psychological risk assessment counsellor has duty to warn the court and enforcement agency about any potential of criminal to harm or disrupt the law and order.