8040: Assessing the Youthful Offender: Issues and Techniques (Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology Library)

About the Course:

This course is recommended for health care professionals, especially psychologists, counselors, social workers, and nurses who provide services to or seek knowledge about the cause of juvenile crime and the review of assessment tools and criteria. Whether unfamiliar or familiar with some of the concepts involved in this material, you can benefit from information in this course. This important work begins with a thorough review of the theories as to the causes and important factors of juvenile crime. The authors then proceed to discuss the major types of forensic decisions, the categories of judgment underlying those decisions, and the true value of psychological assessments in the youth justice system. A careful review of the many assessment tools appropriate to the juvenile justice system follows: aptitude and achievement tests; measures of personality, behavior, and attitudes; measures of environmental factors; and diagnostic and classification systems. Each is treated in a separate chapter which includes a discussion of the relevance and use of the specific type of measure. Frontline juvenile-system personnel, such as, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, as well as judges, lawyers, and probation officers will find this book to be extremely useful.

Author

Hoge, Robert D., Ph.D. & Andrews D.A., Ph.D.

About the Author:

Dr. Hoge is Professor of Psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He is author of numerous journal articles and two recent books: Assessing the Youthful Offender: Issues and Techniques (Plenum, 1996) and Assessing Adolescents in Educational, Counseling, and Other Settings (Erlbaum, 1999). He is a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association and Member of the College of Psychologists of Ontario.

Course Objectives:

1. to be able to identify the major risk factors for juvenile offending

2. to be able to describe the features of effective programming for juvenile offenders

3. to be able to describe the importance of standardized assessments