Collaboration Process Paper Forensic Psychology

The 1980s and 1990s recorded an increase in the arrest of juveniles that had committed crime both in the United States of America and the United Kingdom. The arrests test the critical element of the justice system of handling juvenile delinquency. Although there are no international standards of the definition of juvenile delinquency, most definitions point to the one presented by Young, et al. (2017). In that regard, juvenile delinquents are individuals who have committed an offense, yet they are above the varying international age of criminal responsibility. The individuals are also below the varying international age to be considered an adult by the laws under the jurisdiction (Grisso, 2019: Greenberg, 2019: Salekin, et al., 2016). The arrest of children below the age of majority, therefore, puts to task the juvenile psychologist in assisting courtrooms in making a ruling. The juvenile psychologist mainly evaluates and presents diagnosis that enables courts of law to make a ruling, while also attempting to facilitate the children’s future abstinence from crime. In this manner, psychologists dealing with juvenile delinquents have to collaborate with other parties and professionals, including parents, educational professionals, and forensic social workers, in discharging their mandate. This report examines the collaboration between juvenile forensic psychologists and different stakeholders in juvenile offenders' lives. The report also highlights how such a collaboration process would work and the collaborative resources necessary to complete a report. Finally, the report also explains how collaboration with the various stakeholders contributes to the evaluation process. 

How Collaboration Processes Work 

Bartol and Bartol (2017) confirms that access to information is critical in the performance of forensic investigations. Collaborations in the process of developing an evaluation report should take the form of provision of juvenile forensic psychologists with, and granting them access to useful information. Such collaboration may involve three groups of individuals, each group important in contributing to the formulation of an evaluation report. They include the offender's caregivers, the educational officials dealing with the child, and the offenders’ peers. Often, there are a number of resources that may be necessary for the completion of the juvenile delinquency evaluation report. 

Collaboration with the Caregivers 

The psychologists’ collaboration with the juveniles’ caregivers is crucial for obtaining information on child records, history, treatment history, and general family expectations. The forensic psychologist is tasked with getting the details of the child that would be most useful for the facilitation of the offender’s documentation records. In addition, collaboration with the caregivers would also allow the juvenile psychologist to gain access to, and later assess any relevant criminal and offense history of the child (Grisso, 2019: Greenberg, 2019: Young et al., 2017). These would be critical in the process of obtaining relevant information to design intervention measures for juvenile offenders. The collaboration with the caregivers contributes to the evaluation process by availing any historical data that may be used to explain or predict the profile of each offender. Ordinarily, most of the caregivers are willing to give little helpful information on the records and history of juvenile delinquency. Even in cases where they are willing to do so, the evaluation process is mostly conducted in a juvenile detention facility (Young et al. 2017: Salekin et al. 2016). The caregivers are, therefore, mostly not available during such evaluation. If allowed to be present, the information they offer would aid in the diagnosis of the issue. Consequently, it would be useful in the development of tools and techniques that would be useful in designing effective prevention and intervention measures. 

Collaboration with the Educational Officials 

For the juveniles’ psychologists, educational professionals form yet another important group of professionals whose collaboration would be vital. It would be extremely important to collaborate with this group in the evaluation of juvenile delinquency. In many jurisdictions all around the world, the legal definition of juvenile delinquency falls within the school-going age. This is because the basic education system of most countries is designed for children of minority age (Grisso, 2019: Melton et al. 2017). As such, juvenile offenders being students in schools would possess some form of the school record – most of which would be critical to the juveniles’ psychologists during delinquency evaluation. The records might inform the perspectives of the psychologists while examining pertinent factors during the evaluation of juvenile delinquency (Salekin et al. 2016: Melton, et al. 2017 ). Even though there are many instances of juvenile offenders not being active school-going children, whatever available history of their school records is vital. Such records would aid in the development of an evaluation report by the juvenile forensic psychologists. On this basis, the education professionals would be likely to present the children’s identification details, the available details of the offenders’ parents, and the children’s academic history. Young et al. (2017) point out that a profile of the child and the perspective gained from the teachers would be critical to the formation of an evaluation report. 

Collaboration with the Offenders’ Peers 

Finally, the juveniles’ psychologists should seek to collaborate with the offender's peers while gathering information. The insights offered by the peers may be necessary for conducting and writing a juvenile evaluation report. Melton et al. (2017) observe that the behavior of juvenile delinquents is often influenced by those within their immediate environments. In this regard, the peers would be able to offer any relevant information on the temperaments, predispositions, and mannerisms of a child offender. For psychologists, such input would be vital in the formation of an evaluation report on juvenile delinquency. By collaborating with the peers of an individual, the juveniles’ psychologists may obtain information that educational professionals and caregivers may not have been privy to. It is likely that individuals would confide in their peers, and act more freely around such peers than would be the case for both teachers and caregivers. Consequently, collaboration with such individuals would involve interviewing them and sourcing their views on the criminal offender. Psychologists attending to juveniles would gain a great deal from such interaction. Emerging details from such collaboration would be critical in the development of an evaluation report on juvenile delinquency (Grisso, 2019). It would be necessary for the forensic psychologists to use tools of behavior analysis while dealing with peers. These would go a long way in aiding the collection of relevant information for completing delinquency evaluation reports. However, all the information obtained therefrom should be backed by provable evidence such as arrest reports, previous complaints against the offender, and witness testimonies. 

Recommendations 

For juvenile forensic psychologists to complete their delinquency evaluation report effectively, they would need to collaborate with different stakeholders. These include; 

Caregivers of such children, who have the knowledge of the child and their background. Collaboration between psychologists and this group of stakeholders would avail critical input on the overall nature of the child offender. 

Educational officials with access to the school and discipline records. As such, this group of stakeholders would offer critical input on the behavior and mannerisms of juvenile delinquents. 

Peers who have interacted with the child offender in the past would also offer valuable information for completing delinquency evaluation reports. Collaboration between this group and the psychologist may offer details that interaction with the other two sets of stakeholders may not. 

Overall, it is important for juvenile forensic psychologists to seek the input of other stakeholders who have access to intimate details of child offenders. Resulting findings would be crucial to developing a proper delinquency evaluation report. 

References  

Bartol, C. R., & Bartol, A. M. (2017).  Introduction to Forensic Psychology: Research and Application . Sage Publications. 

Greenberg, L. R. (2019). Family Forensic Psychology . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Higher Education 

Grisso, T. (2019). Three Opportunities for the Future of Juvenile Forensic Assessment.  Criminal Justice and Behavior ,  46 (12), 1671-1677. 

Melton, G. B., Petrila, J., Poythress, N. G., Slobogin, C., Otto, R. K., Mossman, D., & Condie, L. O. (2017).  Psychological Evaluations for the Courts: A Handbook for Mental Health Professionals and Lawyers . Guilford Publications. 

Salekin, R. T., Grimes, R. D., & Adams, E. W. (2016). Clinical Forensic Evaluations for Juvenile Transfer to Adult Criminal Court . Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. 

Young, S., Greer, B., & Church, R. (2017). Juvenile Delinquency, Welfare, Justice, and Therapeutic Interventions: A Global Perspective. Bjpsych Bulletin ,  41 (1), 21-29. https://doi.org/ 10.1192/pb.bp.115.052274