Introduction to special issue on advances in forensic mental health assessment

Abstract

Advances in forensic psychiatric and psychological assessment continue to march forward. New approaches regularly appear on the scene, with some gaining traction and having a positive impact in the field, and others quietly falling to the wayside. Ideally, such research findings will positively impact the work of forensic professionals in civil, criminal, correctional, and law enforcement areas, and in turn help forensic professionals raise the quality, accuracy, and usefulness of their efforts.The call for manuscripts with the present issue was broad, and launching this special issue was like casting a net into the sea and expecting a bountiful return but not knowing quite what the catch would be. This expectation was heartily fulfilled, and the issue came together readily thanks to a strong degree of interest and enthusiasm from contributors. The resultant works cover a sweeping range of forensic assessment topics, and variously address how our current practices might be improved, expose systemic weaknesses in the judicial system's processing of defendants' competency to stand trial and mental state at the time of their offenses, present new research findings, and provide future directions for forensic assessment approaches.We suspect much of this issue will resonate with forensic practitioners and researchers in their daily lives. To give a few examples, Bernet and Xu (2023), enlisting the help of library science, were able to track down the propagation of parental alienation misinformation through generations of scientific publications, one after the other propagating the erroneous information without ever confirming it through the original source. It was a viral meme of sorts jumping from one journal host to the next. We suspect this happens in research far more often than is realized.The spectrum of violence plays a critical role in many forensic endeavors. The Institute for Economics & Peace (2021) estimates the annual economic impact of global violence at an astounding $14.1 trillion, equating to 11.2% of world economic activity or nearly $2000.00 for every person on the planet. Hall and Iannuzzi (pp 246 to 261) continue the debate on violence as a public health issue, a societal contagion yet at the same time an issue of prediction at the individual level, with the need for interventions at the ecological and individual levels.A rare but critical and tragic genre of violence is the serial sexual murder by juveniles. Myers and colleagues (pp 262 to 279) examined the nature of this phenomenon on an international scale, using the SADSEX-SH rating scale to assess sexual sadism in this population. Finding sexual sadism in two thirds of these youthful offenders, the authors suggest potential prognostic implications and future research. Despite its rarity, serial sexual homicide by juveniles and the potential utility of the SADSEX-SH rating scale ought not be overlooked in forensic psychiatry training programs; it is the only crime scene rating scale in existence that is designed to diagnose a mental disorder (...