Court Phase 3: Expert Testimony Flashcards

1
Q

Actus Reus

A

A wrongful deed

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2
Q

Unfit to stand trial

A

Refers to an inability to conduct a defence at any stage of the proceedings on account of a person’s mental disorder

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3
Q

Classical Penal System (Rehabilitation)

A
  • Focused on the dignity and worth of the individual
    According to the classical model:
    • Free will enables human beings to purposely and deliberately choose to
    follow a calculated course of action
    • Crime is attractive and is controlled through the fear of punishment
    • Punishment is to be applied equally to all offenders
    • Punishment works best when perceived to be: Severe, Certain, Swift
    • The model was utilitarian (“the greatest happiness for the greatest number”)
    • Criminals are essentially the same as non-criminals. They commit crimes
    after calculating costs and benefits
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4
Q

Rehabilitation

A
  • Model that emphasises the provision of treatment programs designed to reform the offender
  • Belongs to the modern penal system C19th
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5
Q

Rehabilitation and the modern penal system

A

• emerged with the growth of new scientific disciplines like psychiatry,
psychology and psychotherapy
• Positivist
• Human behaviour is determined and not a matter of free will
• Criminals are fundamentally different from non-criminals
• Crime is frequently caused by multiple factors
(psychological, biological, or social) that constrain our rationality
• Focused on offenders rather than systems
• Punishment to be applied differently to different offenders (‘what
works for whom, where and when?’)
• Programs designed to address criminal propensities

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6
Q

Contemporary Rehabilitation

A

Emphasises personal responsibility for offending
and rehabilitation
• Often involves: restorative justice, therapeutic jurisprudence, specialist
courts

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7
Q

Restorative Justice

A

– “a process whereby all the parties with a stake in a
particular offence come together to resolve collectively how to deal with the
aftermath of the offence and its implications for the future”

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8
Q

Rehabilitation (Focuses on the needs of victims of crime)

A

• holds offenders accountable and responsible for the harm
they have caused
• Offenders have to acknowledge their wrongdoing and
repair harm to victim

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9
Q

Conferencing Models

A

victim/offender mediation
(relatives and authorities are also involved); circle sentencing;
family group conferencing; community reparation boards (See
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/184738.pdf for more info on
each)

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10
Q

Therapeutic Jurisprudence (TJ)

A

legal term that describes criminal justice and court
initiatives that focus on therapeutic interventions to start
to rehabilitate an offender during the court process
• therapeutic jurisprudence can sometimes be referred to
as collaborative justice
• recognises that the law and legal process can have
positive or negative effects on participants, including
offenders
• TJ may look at how the court works, sentencing process,
sentences, speciality courts, etc

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11
Q

Speciality or problem solving courts

A

Drug dependency in offenders (drug courts)
• Mental health problems and offending (mental health
courts)
• Indigenous over-representation (Indigenous courts)
• Family and domestic violence (family violence court)
Can serve 1 of 3 roles:
• Court as case manager – ongoing
• Diversionary operators and case monitors – alternatives
• Specialist adjudicator – sentences

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12
Q

Key approaches to offender rehabilitation

A

Key approaches can inform treatment in custodial
and community settings:
• The Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model –
psychological (offender deficit) model
• The Good Lives Model (GLM) –psychosocial
(desistence) model

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13
Q

Risk-Need-Responsivity Model (RNR)

A

The Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model is a correctional
intervention model based on the factors of risk, need, and
responsivity
• Usually specific tools are used to assess the 3 levels (e.g the LSI-R)

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14
Q

Criminogenic needs might include

A
  • antisocial attitudes, values, and beliefs (rationalising
    “everybody does it, so what’s the problem”, “I have the
    right to do what I want” or denial of responsibility “I was
    framed”, “I’ve already been punished enough”)
    • low self control
    • criminal peers
    • substance abuse
    • lack of employment
    • dysfunctional family
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15
Q

Non-Criminogenic Needs

A

Non-criminogenic needs can also be assessed and
treated. If changed these may have an indirect impact
on criminal behaviour and recidivism: Noncriminogenic
needs might include:
• low self-esteem
• anxiety
• lack of parenting skills
• medical needs
• victimisation issues
• learning disability

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16
Q

Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) Model: 1) Risk Principle

A
  1. Risk principle:
    – How likely is a person to engage in criminal behaviours?
    tells us who to target for what types of treatment
    – Helps organise the treatment of offenders according to the
    level of risk they pose to society
    – High risk offenders need more treatment and supervision to
    decrease their likelihood of recidivism
    – Low risk offenders need less treatment and supervision to
    decrease their likelihood of recidivism
17
Q

Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) Model: 2) Need principle

A
  1. Need principle:
    • What areas in a person’s life should be targeted for
    intervention/supervision in order to decrease their
    likelihood of future criminal behaviour?
    • Assess criminogenic needs, apply treatment and
    interventions to those needs
    • Criminogenic needs or dynamic risk factors contribute to
    the likelihood that someone will commit a crime;
    amenable to change
18
Q

Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) Model: 3) Responsivity Principle

A
  1. Responsivity principle: What personal strengths and/or
    characteristics of offenders (motivation, learning style, ethnic
    identity) might influence the effectiveness of treatment services?
    • General and specific responsivity is assessed
    • General Responsivity states that offender treatment programs
    need to maximise the offender’s ability to learn/change
    • Identify and focus on personal strengths
    – Computer skills
    – Strong family relationships
    – High educational level
    – History of stable employment
    – Strong ties to recovering community
19
Q

Specific Responsivity Assesses Individual Factors that might influence the effectiveness of treatment services, such as:

A
Anxiety
– ADHD
– Motivation Level
– Gender
– Reading Level/ESL
– Language
20
Q

Weaknesses of the RNR

A

Difficulty in motivating offenders (offenders want to
know how they can lead a better life, and what the
positive rewards in desisting from crime are)
• Deficit-oriented approach
• Negative (or avoidant) treatment goals
• Does not always recognise the role of:
– personal identity or agency
– non-criminogenic needs
– context in rehabilitation

21
Q

Good Lives Model (GLM)

A

The Good Lives Model (GLM) is one which is
based on desistance -
• “We have been so busy thinking about how to
reduce sexual crimes that we have overlooked a
rather basic truth: recidivism may be further
reduced through helping offenders to live better
lives, not simply targeting isolated risk
factors.” (Ward et al, 2006, 391)

22
Q

Desistance

A

In the field of criminology, desistance is generally defined as the cessation of offending or other antisocial behavior. However, researchers have not reached a consensus on the definition of desistance

23
Q

Nine Basic Human Goals that the Good Lives Model (GLM) work on strengtheing:

A

Life (Healthy living, optimal physical functioning, sexual satisfaction)
• Knowledge
• Excellence in work and play (including mastery experiences)
• Excellence in agency (autonomy and self-directedness)
• Inner peace (freedom from emotional turmoil and stress)
• Relatedness (including intimate, romantic and family relationships)
• Spirituality (broad sense of finding meaning and purpose in life)
• Happiness
• Creativity

24
Q

Key Argument of Good lives model (GLM)

A

• Human behaviour is directed towards goal of achieving
fundamental needs or ‘primary human goods’
• Difficulties in achieving primary goods in socially
appropriate ways will possibly lead to antisocial or
offending behaviour
• Goal of treatment is to recognise individual agency and
build capacity/opportunity to meet primary goods in
socially appropriate ways
• Requires a strong ‘therapeutic alliance’ nonconfrontational,
motivational and collaborative approach

25
Q

Good Lives Model (GLM) Desistance Theories Weaknesses

A

The concept of desistance is not well defined
• The desistance approach focuses on developmental process rather
than intervention effectiveness/outcome
• a lack of current evidence of efficacy
• diversity in views of ‘the good life’,
• which offenders really need ‘holistic reconstruction of the self’ is
unknown
• antisocial ‘good lives plans’ might work quite well for some
offenders, and therefore actually support offending. For example
some sex offenders
• Challenges for case management practices

26
Q

Sex offender treatment

A
  • Experimental FPs research future risk of sex offenders; treatment needs; and treatment evaluation (much disagreement)
    • Clinical FPs carry out treatment with sex offenders inside correctional facilities, in the community and in mental health facilities (various different types, focusing mostly on risk factors)
27
Q

What do sex offender treatment programs often address

A
– Denial, minimisations and cognitive distortions
– Empathy for victims
– Social skills
– Substance abuse
– Deviant sexual interests
– Relapse prevention
28
Q

Homicide Offender Treatment

A

Experimental FPs research types of homicides, future risk, and treatment needs (very few
working in this space)
• Clinical FPs carry out treatment (for some) inside correctional facilities, in the community and in mental health facilities (usually includes general violence too)

29
Q

Treatment for homicide offenders commonly addresses

A
– Anger management
– Self-regulation/control
– Problem solving
– Interpersonal skills
– Social attitudes (see example worksheet)
30
Q

Prima Facie Case

A

Case in which the crown prosecutor must prove there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial

31
Q

Insanity

A

Impairment of mental or emotional functioning that affects perceptions, beliefs, and motivations at the time of the offence

32
Q

3 Specific Insanity Defences of today:

A

1) A defendant must be found to be suffering from a defect of reason/disease of the mind
2) A defendant must not know the nature and quality of the act he or she is performing
3) A defendant must not know what he or she is doing wrong

33
Q

Review Boards

A

Legal bodies mandated to oversee the care and disposition of defendants found unfit and or not criminally responsible on account of a mental disorder

34
Q

Absolute Discharge

A

The defendant is released into the community without restrictions to his or her behaviour

35
Q

Conditional Discharge

A

A defendant is released; however, release carries certain conditions (e.g., not to possess firearms) that the defendant must meet. Failure to meet the conditions imposed with a conditional discharge may result in the defendant being incarcerated or sent to a psychiatric facility

36
Q

Capping

A

There is a maximum period of time a person with a mental illness could be affected by his or her disposition

37
Q

Automatism

A

Unconscious, involuntary behaviour such that the person committing the act is not aware of what he or she is doing

38
Q

Offenders with mental disorders: Community Treatment Order

A

Sentence that allows the mentally ill offender to live in the community, with the stipulation that the person will agree to treatment or detention in the event that his or her condition deteriorates

39
Q

Diversion: Offenders with mental disorders

A

A decision not to prosecute, but rather have him or her undergo an educational or community-service programs, Also an option for the courts dealing with offenders with mental illnesses who are facing minor charges. The court can divert the offender directly into a treatment program rather than have him or her go through the court process