Evaluating Juveniles' Adjudicative Competence: A Guide for Clinical Practice

by Thomas Grisso

Due to recent changes in the law pertaining to youths in juvenile and criminal court, the need to evaluate a young persons competence to stand trial has increased dramatically. This is the first comprehensive guide offering clinicians the special concepts, procedures, and methods necessary to perform these evaluations using a developmental perspective. The book's approach to evaluating youths' competence to stand trial is consistent with nearly a decade of research by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice. Written in 17 brief units, this guide for forensic clinicians begins with essential concepts that provide a sound legal and developmental psychological foundation for these evaluations. The guide then proceeds to describe in detail special considerations for designing the evaluation, collecting data in ways that are sensitive to deficits in youths abilities due to clinical disorders and potential developmental immaturity, and interpreting the results to address the special challenges associated with identifying juveniles capacities and deficits as trial defendants. The guide's Appendices provides a number of original forms and checklists for use in this evaluation process, including a structured interview - the Juvenile Adjudicative Competence Interview (JACI) - that assists clinicians in obtaining essential data related to youths strengths and deficits with legal and developmental relevance for their competence to stand trial. Book includes a link for purchasers to download reproducible materials for use with individual clients. A parallel volume, Clinical Evaluations for Juveniles' Competence to Stand A Guide for Legal Professionals, is available for members of the legal profession. These two companion volumes offer the potential for a consensual, cross-disciplinary understanding of the legal, clinical, and developmental issues involved in the process of decisions about juveniles competence as trial defendants.

172 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2005

Reviews

[Britt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very useful for clinicians doing competency to stand trail evaluations in the court system. The sample report has some flaws, but overall a good look at the topic with useful tools to support psychologists. It helped me when I first started doing these types of evaluations and I recently re-read it for an update.

[Kimtastic · Rating 5 out of 5]

so this one is actually really close to what i do....