Advancing the Forensic Mental Health Assessment (FMHA) of Nonviolent Offenders: Implications for Sentencing Decisions, Intervention Planning, and Policy Change

摘要

Forensic mental health assessment (FMHA) has been defined as the measurement of any psychologically relevant construct (e.g., competence to stand trial or violence risk) that contributes to decision making in a legal context (Heilbrun, 1997). A number of advances in FMHA research and practice have occurred over the past decade (Rogers, 2000), but rarely have FMHA-related studies focused on nonviolent offenders. The limited empirical attention paid to nonviolent offenders appears unwarranted given the significant problems associated with nonviolent crime, as well as the recent proliferation of alternative-to-incarceration programs geared specifically toward more effective management of nonviolent offenders. This article proposes that greater empirical attention to nonviolent FMHA-related research is needed. FMHA-related research with nonviolent offender samples is critically reviewed, and the implications of empirically-validated nonviolent FMHA for sentencing decisions, intervention planning, and criminal justice policy are discussed.