Laura Grossi - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Laura Grossi

Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and Practice, 2021

ABSTRACT Adjudicative competence evaluations are the most common forensic evaluation to occur in ... more ABSTRACT Adjudicative competence evaluations are the most common forensic evaluation to occur in the United States. As a result of these evaluations, pretrial defendants are often found to be incompetent to stand trial and ordered for competency restoration, with psychotic symptoms as a major barrier to competency. Traditional competency restoration services are sometimes insufficient for restoring such defendants to competency within a reasonable period of time. This can lead to a finding that a defendant is unrestorably incompetent to stand trial and potentially a dismissal of charges. However, if not all available interventions are attempted during the course of competency restoration, this may be perceived as a miscarriage of justice for victims. In other cases, defendants with psychotic symptoms may lack insight into their mental illness, and after being successfully restored to competency, become non-adherent with their prescribed medication regimens and decompensate before their cases are resolved. The authors contend that use of Cognitive Behavior Therapy for psychosis (CBT-p) as an adjunct to traditional competency restoration services may be a means of restoring more defendants to competency, and also strengthening the durability of restored competency, when psychotic symptoms are identified as a barrier to adjudicative competence. This makes use of the skill sets of many clinically trained treatment providers working in forensic settings, and is consistent with recent trends of applying empirically-based interventions designed for use with non-forensic patients in forensic contexts. A case example is included to demonstrate the potential application of CBT-p to competency restoration during the course of individualized intervention.

Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and Practice, 2020

Adaptations are frequently made by hospital administrators, clinicians, and other staff to accomm... more Adaptations are frequently made by hospital administrators, clinicians, and other staff to accommodate for the changing populations of state psychiatric hospitals in the United States. For example, many mental health treatments, including evidence-based treatments, have been adapted for use with forensic patients and in forensic settings. Specialized ethical guidance has also been developed for working with forensic patients. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the logistics of safely conducting therapeutic interventions and assessments in environments that were not designed for forensic populations, or individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities as primary diagnoses. Further, most training programs for mental health clinicians do not include specialized training for working in inpatient psychiatric settings, including state psychiatric hospitals, and so it often falls to training sites to provide that foundational knowledge. The current manuscript d...

The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 2019

Victimization of individuals with mental illness may involve serious emotional or physical injury... more Victimization of individuals with mental illness may involve serious emotional or physical injury to already vulnerable persons. Further, victimization may contribute to subsequent victimization experiences, exacerbate psychiatric symptoms, and prolong hospitalization, among other undesirable secondary outcomes. Nonetheless, limited prior research has focused on predicting victimization in forensic psychiatric settings, and no research has attempted to do so with the Historical, Clinical, Risk Management-20 Version 3 (HCR-20V3) tool. This study involved retrospective ratings of the HCR-20V3 for 169 hospitalized insanity acquittees and examined the utility of HCR-20V3 ratings in predicting victimization. Although the HCR-20V3 was not explicitly developed to aid in evaluations of victimization risk, other structured professional judgment tools intended to predict violence risk have demonstrated potential for predicting victimization, due to the existence of common risk factors and ove...

Psychological Services, 2020

Evaluators of examinees in forensic contexts must consider the potential for falsified or exagger... more Evaluators of examinees in forensic contexts must consider the potential for falsified or exaggerated psychiatric symptoms and/or cognitive deficits. A number of validated assessment tools assist evaluators in identifying those examinees who feign impairment; however, no comprehensive method has been established for consolidating data from multiple tests, interviews, behavioral observations, and collateral sources. The current pilot study preliminarily examined the interrater reliability and validity of a new forensic assessment tool, the Feigning Evaluation INtegrating Sources (FEINS), developed to guide evaluators in the comprehensive assessment of feigning by adding structure to the collection of relevant data. Fifty-eight male pretrial defendants undergoing restoration of competency to stand trial at a state forensic psychiatric center participated in the study. Results provided preliminary support for reliability in scoring the FEINS, construct validity, and predictive validity. FEINS items that assessed clinical presentation, and those that guided the use of test data, were more useful than items capturing historical/demographic data. Structured professional judgments developed using the FEINS appeared to be more accurate in predicting competency evaluators' perceptions of feigning than both unstructured clinical judgment (i.e., referring psychologist's perception of feigning) alone and test data alone, using hierarchical multiple regressions. Findings suggest that the FEINS may have practical utility in guiding clinical opinions regarding feigning across psychiatric, cognitive, and psycholegal/functional domains. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 2018

Certain defendant characteristics, including psychiatric diagnosis, externalizing problems, and c... more Certain defendant characteristics, including psychiatric diagnosis, externalizing problems, and cognitive deficits, are associated with longer periods of restoration of competency to stand trial and general lack of treatment success. Prior research has called for a more detailed examination of symptom-level differences between defendants rapidly restored to competency and those who require lengthier treatment for competency restoration. The present study evaluated whether specific aspects of psychopathological constructs assessed by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF), and specific cognitive abilities assessed by the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI/WASI-II), were associated with length of competency restoration among 344 male pretrial defendants hospitalized at a maximum security forensic psychiatric hospital. Higher Juvenile Conduct Problems (JCP) scores were associated with restoration within 90 days, and Antisocial Behavior (RC4) predicted restoration status at 90 days; no MMPI-2-RF or WASI/WASI-II scales predicted restoration status at 180 days when controlling for age. Overall, results suggested that externalizing behaviors are among factors that may play a role in predicting restoration status at select time points.

Violence and Victims, 2018

Although a growing literature on community-based victimization of people with mental illness exis... more Although a growing literature on community-based victimization of people with mental illness exists, victimization within institutional settings is comparatively understudied. The current study seeks to fill this gap by exploring factors related to risk of victimization in a male forensic psychiatric sample using a relatively new risk assessment measure. The Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) is a short-term risk assessment measure that compiles information about several clinically relevant risk factors to evaluate risk of victimization, among other adverse outcomes. Nearly one-third (31.3%) of the sample experienced some type of victimization during their hospitalization. The summary risk judgment and subsets of select START items effectively predicted risk of victimization in this sample with a fair degree of accuracy over a 2-month period.

Practice Innovations, 2017

Criminal responsibility refers to the degree to which an individual is accountable for an illegal... more Criminal responsibility refers to the degree to which an individual is accountable for an illegal act that he or she committed given idiographic factors such as age, cognitive abilities, and psychological functioning (Packer, 2009). Thus, perception of criminal responsibility has the potential to greatly impact forensically involved individuals, and most often forensically involved individuals living with severe and persistent mental illness and/or cognitive limitations. This paper focuses on international and cross-cultural perspectives on criminal responsibility; the topic is of importance because mental health professionals may perform evaluations of criminal responsibility, and potentially testify in this regard, in jurisdictions with dissimilar perspectives and/or policies related to criminal responsibility. Specifically, this article discusses the similarities and differences between several geographic areas’ definitions of criminal responsibility, evolving legal standards, and the apparent relevance of formal diagnoses in determining criminal responsibility. Variation in perceptions of treatment to rehabilitate mentally ill offenders and the potential legal consequences of a finding of guilt or nonguilt by reason of insanity are also discussed. Findings emphasize that mental health experts who perform criminal responsibility evaluations must be attuned to the specific context in which a defendant is being tried, particularly if practicing in multiple jurisdictions, and that consumers of criminal responsibility research should attend to the broader social context(s) in which each research study is conducted and findings are interpreted.

Aggression and Violent Behavior, 2017

Sexual offenders and violent offenders compose two diverse subgroups of the United States' offend... more Sexual offenders and violent offenders compose two diverse subgroups of the United States' offender population, and individuals in these groups face unique challenges with respect to reentry and reintegration into the community upon release from controlled settings. Successful reintegration is typically defined by a lack of recidivism; however, an offender's quality of life may also be considered a critical consideration when defining success. Of the major challenges faced by sexual offenders and violent offenders, social stigma and barriers to housing and employment are among the most notable. These factors are often interrelated, such that difficulty in one domain may contribute to difficulties in other domains. As public perception of such offenders is largely driven by the media, stereotypes, and public policy, and less by research, offenders also face distinctive social barriers to successful community reentry and reintegration. Moreover, there is limited support for established policies and programs intended to maximize a violent/sexual offender's reentry success, in part due to the low base rate of reoffense. The present study reviews the literature examining factors associated with successful and unsuccessful community reintegration for sexual offenders and violent offenders released from controlled settings. Treatment of sexual offenders and violent offenders, and community-based support programs designed to facilitate reentry and reintegration, are also discussed.

Psychological assessment, Jan 8, 2016

The present study evaluated the Response Bias scale (RBS), a symptom validity test embedded withi... more The present study evaluated the Response Bias scale (RBS), a symptom validity test embedded within the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) that assesses for feigned neurocognitive complaints, in a sample of pretrial incompetent to stand trial (IST) criminal defendants. Additionally, we examined the Improbable Failure (IF) scale, a performance validity test embedded within the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms, Second Edition (SIRS-2), which similarly assesses for feigned cognitive impairment (FCI). Results indicated that both the RBS (area under the curve [AUC] = .76) and IF scale (AUC = .72) achieved moderate classification accuracy using the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) as the criterion. Further, the RBS and IF scale appeared to be most useful for screening out those defendants who presented as genuine (specificity = 99% and 88%, respectively), and less effective at classifying those defendants suspected of feigning accor...

International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 2015

Prior research has examined the relationship between personality characteristics and problematic ... more Prior research has examined the relationship between personality characteristics and problematic behaviors, suggesting the utility of self-report personality measures in assessing risk of aggression. This study examined the relationship between select Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) scales and estimated psychopathy indices derived from MMPI-2-RF scales, and institutional aggression among hospitalized pre-trial defendants. Scores on Thought Dysfunction (THD), Aberrant Experiences, Juvenile Conduct Problems, and Psychoticism-Revised (PSYC-r) were associated with mild-severe aggression. Similarly, THD and PSYC-r were associated with moderate-severe aggression. Regarding psychopathy, impulsive-antisociality, but not fearless-dominance, was associated with both aggressive outcomes. Overall, the relevant MMPI-2-RF scales demonstrated higher classification accuracy than the estimated psychopathy indices.

Child abuse & neglect, Jan 14, 2016

The current retrospective archival study investigated the patterns of normative sexualized behavi... more The current retrospective archival study investigated the patterns of normative sexualized behavior (NSB), problematic sexualized behavior (PSB), and sexual perpetration for three age cohorts of boys and girls in a high-risk child welfare sample. All children in the present sample had exhibited some form of PSB in the past. We hypothesized that the incidence rates (IR) of NSBs would increase linearly from the early childhood cohort (Ages 2/3-7) to the middle childhood cohort (Ages 8-11) to the preadolescence/adolescence cohort (Ages 12-17), for girls and boys. Although the base rate of sexual behaviors generally increases as children age, children tend to hide sexual behaviors starting at an early age. We therefore hypothesized that a concave quadratic trend would be evident for most PSBs. We further predicted that older children would have a greater incidence of PSB, as well as more victims, compared with younger children. We found the predicted upward linear trend for NSB for both...

Journal of interpersonal violence, Jan 6, 2014

Sexual aggression is a persistent and prevalent issue in the United States, which often results i... more Sexual aggression is a persistent and prevalent issue in the United States, which often results in a number of psychological, emotional, and physical consequences for victims. The current study examined whether the length of relationship between the victim and perpetrator, level of victim resistance, and observers' gender role attitudes play a role in observers' perceptions of an alleged sexual assault. Participants included 297 male college students from a public university in the Northeastern United States. Contrary to hypotheses, there were no significant effects for length of relationship on participants' attributions. Relative to no resistance, verbal and physical strategies by the victim predicted higher levels of victim credibility, perpetrator culpability, and perpetrator guilt, as well as lower levels of victim culpability and perceived victim pleasure. Endorsement of traditional adversarial sex role beliefs and hostile sexist attitudes, as opposed to egalitaria...

Journal of Child Custody, 2014

This study examined the relationship between childhood physical abuse, sexual abuse and placement... more This study examined the relationship between childhood physical abuse, sexual abuse and placement instability, and sexually inappropriate and aggressive behaviors in a child welfare sample. Sexually Inappropriate Behavior was associated with all independent variables. Sexual Aggression and Child=Male Victims were both associated with Sexual Abuse and Placement Instability. Offense Persistence was associated with Placement Instability. All risk-mitigating factors (i.e., Self-Control, Global Adjustment, and Responsibility for Behavior) were associated only with Placement Instability. The broad and robust influence of placement instability on short-term outcomes of sexually inappropriate and aggressive behavior, as well as the risk mitigating factors, was the most notable finding. Findings underscore the importance of placement stability in the development of young children.