Rafael Art. Javier - Assessing Trauma in Forensic Contexts

Thirty years ago, there was nothing (that is not hyperbole) in the legal literature that discussed trauma in the context of forensic psychology or psychiatry. Before 1991, there were but two cases that even mentioned both trauma and any aspect of forensic mental health.When I offered a course at New York Law School in the late 2000s on Trauma and Mental Disability Law, it wasto the best of my knowledgethe first such course ever offered at any US law school.

Times have changed. A simple WESTLAW search for 2019 alone

In an insightful article, Professors Sarah Katz and Deeya Haldar suggest that lawyers incorporate trauma-informed practice in their skill set. Trauma-informed practice recognizes the impact of trauma on systems and individuals. Trauma-informed practice ensures that clients have access to trauma-focused interventions during all routine practice. These interventions incorporate an assessment of trauma and trauma symptoms and endeavor to treat the consequences of traumatic stress. Instead of asking, What is wrong with you? a trauma-informed practitioner asks, What happened to you? (see Cucolo & Perlin, 2017, p. 324, discussing Katz & Halder, 2016). In this context, Professors Sarah Katz and Deeya Haldar have underscored, The trauma experiences of clients have a direct relationship to how they relate to their attorneys and the courts, because trauma has a distinct physiological effect on the brain, which in turn affects behavior in the short-term and long-term (Katz & Halder, 2016, p. 366).

Tardily, we have begun to realize, variously, the impact of posttraumatic stress disorder on persons who have been the victims of domestic violence and trafficking, and of veterans who have served in the recent wars in the Middle East (Perlin, 2015), on the traumatic outcomes of shaming processes in juvenile court matters (Perlin & Lynch, 2018),on how factors such as trauma may lead to behavior that results in a death sentence (Perlin, 2016), on how trauma from sexual violence may lead to psychiatric disability requiring long-term institutionalization (Perlin & Cucolo, 2017), and the need for trauma-informed care in mental health courts (Weinstein & Perlin, 2018). And all of these realizations call outbetter,screamoutfor greater awareness of these phenomena on the part of forensic witnesses.

This masterful book, edited by Rafael Art. Javier, Elizabeth Owen, and Jemour A. Maddux, is a refreshing, original, and thoughtful response to these needs, demonstratingbeyond any doubtwhy lawyers and forensic mental health professionals must be trauma-informed in all of their relevant work. This book does not simply fill a gap; it creates a high bar for any other authors who seek to enter this complex territory that spans the intersection of law and psychology. We are fortunate that they have chosen this path.

The book is extensive, and it is comprehensive. After an initial part, setting out a conceptual framework (one that focuses both on issues of law such as competency to stand trial and sentencing mitigation, and on issues of psychology (focusing on how trauma issues are at the heart of forensic developmental psychology, and on the criticallyunderconsidered issues that involve culture and linguistic differences in assessing trauma), it moves on to a host ofcivilforensic matters (many of which deal with issues that focus on children and juveniles, but also matters involving employment and injuries), and then on to a similar range ofcriminalmatters (in addition to the ones in the opening part noted above, including sexual offenses, juvenile delinquency, intimate partner violence, and, so especially important, the role of problem-solving (diversion) courts). Finally, in the concluding part, the chapter authors consider best practice models, case studies of criminal cases ripped from the headlines, and a return to a special kind of diversion court, a veterans court, in a chapter written by a NY state judge who presides over problem-solving courts.

Each section of the bookeach chapteris replete with challenges to the forensic mental health professional.In their introductory chapter, two of the editorsJavier and Owenhighlight one of these challenges: to be able to determine the extent to which an individuals earlier attachment experience is implicated in future responses to difficult conditions that become the subject of the assessment (p. xx). They note, accurately, that not everyone who experienced early trauma ends up involved in the justice system as defendants or victims (id.). But the statistics they share with us are unnerving: a child exposed to five or more significant adverse experiences before age 4 is15 times more likely than others to attempt suicide, and 34 times more likely to become an alcoholic