An update on outpatient competence restoration outcomes: The Washington DC Model

This study provides an update to a previous study exploring time to restoration of adjudicative competence within an Outpatient Competence Restoration Program (OCRP). Authors examined the probability of restoration for individuals referred for outpatient competence restoration in the U.S. capital, and revisited the requirements of American Law, taking a closer look at how programmatic changes improve restoration and encourage adherence. Competence to stand trial remains a critical screening function of the judicial system to ensure that defendants have a basic understanding of courtroom procedures. Competency restoration is therefore an attempt to protect both the integrity of the system and the rights of defendants. Aggregate data from the OCRP’s previous four years of competence restoration efforts were reviewed for demographic characteristics, restoration rates, and time to restoration. Poisson regression modeling identified probability differences in restoration between sequential restoration periods. Since our initial analysis, the DC OCRP has been successful in restoring 97 of 345 participants (28.1%), with referral rates increasing from year to year. 39.2% are now restored after the 3rd round of competency restoration. Poisson regression modeling of individuals attaining competence during six successive restoration periods showed that differences for the first five rounds of restoration were not statistically significant (p = 0.418). In the 6th round, however, the difference in percentage of restored participants was statistically significant compared to previous rounds (irr = 0.32; p = 0.0001). We discuss the policy implications, especially those that suggest that the DC OCRP has improved its ability to restore competence beyond the 1st round of restoration.

Forensic Psychology

Forensic psychology is an increasingly popular subset of psychology that broadly speaks to the intersection of psychology and the law. This broad view of forensic psychology encompasses legal and police psychology, some social psychology, and clinical and nonclinical psychological principles that are relevant to this intersection of psychology and law. This bibliography specifically focuses on clinical forensic psychology, the area of forensic psychology that deals directly with the assessment and treatment of those involved in the criminal, civil, and juvenile justice systems. As a result, the citations here do not reflect landmark legal cases, but rather emphasize historically relevant studies and works that have influenced the development of the practice of clinical forensic psychology and empirical articles that discuss important findings in each of the aspects of clinical forensic psychology that are outlined here. This field has grown rapidly in the past thirty years, and many of the sources discussed reflect upon this development and how this has influenced clinical practice. This bibliography contains a section with Textbooks and Handbooks with all other sections addressing Training Models and Graduate School, Assessment, Treatment, and Consultation, Expert Testimony and the Role of the Expert, Psychopathy, Violence Risk Assessment, Sexual Offenders, Civil Commitment, Adjudicative Competence, Insanity, Domestic Violence and Stalking, Juvenile Delinquency and Juvenile Justice, Child Custody Evaluations, Personal Injury and Discrimination in Civil Law, and a Miscellaneous category for some studies that don’t quite fit into these other categories.