Toward Establishing Standards of Practice in Juvenile Forensic Mental Health Assessment

Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed substantial advances in the science and practice of the forensic mental health assessment (FMHA) of juveniles. Such evaluations may be conducted in the juvenile court to inform such legal decisions as diversion, competence to stand trial, adjudication and placement, and transfer into criminal court. They may also be conducted on adolescents in criminal court, on issues such as reverse waiver, competence to stand trial, and mental state at the time of the offense. For the purposes of this chapter, we will focus on the evaluation of adolescents in juvenile and criminal contexts, excluding family and civil issues such as child custody and personal injury. FMHA will be defined as “evaluation that is performed by mental health professionals as part of the legal decision-making process, for the purpose of assisting the decision maker or helping one of the litigants in using relevant clinical and scientific data” (Heilbrun 2001).