Week 5: Forensic Assessment of Adults I - Essay Example

School Affiliation The two instruments that are used in assessing insanity at the time offence are the MSE and the R-CRAS. The R-CRAS consist of two parts where the first part comprises 30 selected psychological and situation variables that are in a sense relevant to a judgment about the defendant’s mental state at the time of the offence; these are then rated by an external examiner based on a a thorough review of the data. RCAS provides a through description of each item rated and also provides anchors that assist the examiners in making decisions on the rating scales.

The other part of R-CAS provides a clear and explicit decision models for use with the America Law Institute standards, here the examiners is put in a position to answer a series of summary questions which corresponds to components of the particular insanity standards that are set. Answers obtained are based on a clear and conscious review of the examiners’ rating of the defendant individual psychological and situational variables.The MSE is used in its design to permit the examiners to arrive at an informed decision about the existence of a “significant mental abnormality” which is based on the time of the offense which in a way played a critical role in affecting the defendant’s action, and thus forms the basis for a defense of insanity.

The MSE plays a critical role in sensitizing the examiner to the kinds of information that are needed in order to address the legal issues of the named defendant’s mental state at the particular time of the offense.The above two tolls of accessing insanity are by far the best tools to be used in the case study as they provide a rather outlined way of clearly assessing whether the defendant was inddedd insane at the time of offence as claimed by the defendant. The two tools MSE and R-CRAS have up to present been researched a lot and when combined to be used in the case study, offer a rather informed way of clearly and with no doubt, analysis of the defendant state of mind.

Any decision reached will be taken into consideration and considered the true state of the defendant mind at the time of offence.I for starters do not believe that the defendant in the case study was legally insane at the particular time of the offense. Insanity takes into account that the defendant is not responsible for his her action due to his or her state of the mind and in most cases situations arising due to mental health problems. As such in the case study, though the defendant claims not to be in his right state of mind, I find the defendant to be legally responsible for his action.

He is a crime victim and clearly a victim of violence; He is simply not a victim of an act of God and as such, the defendant is fully responsible for his action and should face the law.ReferencesJackson, R. (Ed.). (2008). Learning forensic assessment. New York: Routledge.Heilbrun, K., Grisson, T., & Goldstein, A. N. (2008). Foundations of forensic mental health assessment. New York: Oxford University Press.Pankratz, L. (1984). International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology.

Murder and Insanity: 19th Century Perspectives from the "American Journal of Insanity". Volume 28, issue 1. Print.Rotter, F.J. & Steury, E.H. (1991). Criminal Justice Policy Review. Raising The Insanity Defense: A Comparison Of Rates In Jurisdictions With Differing Insanity Commitment Release Laws. Volume 5, issue 4.