Failings of trauma-specific and related psychological tests in detecting post-traumatic stress disorder in forensic settings.

Judges and juries tend to be particularly impressed by test data, especially quantitative test data. Psychometric tests specific for assessing the presence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are commonly employed by forensic mental health evaluators. Most of these instruments, however, have been designed to detect PTSD in treatment or research, and not forensic, settings. Those who rely on these measures without adequate awareness of their often significant limits in correctly identifying malingering may induce finders of fact to inordinately confidently accept the presence of PTSD. This article reviews problematic structural and content components of trauma-specific and related instruments used to evaluate PTSD and discusses the utility of specific techniques liable to be used in forensic settings to "fool" these measures.

Commentary: Approaching and stalking public figures--a prerequisite to attack.

The concept of studying approaches to public figures (i.e., physical pursuit or stalking) arose as a proxy measure to aid in the development of tools to prevent assassination, a low base rate event. In this commentary, we review the origins of this concept and the historical record of public figure attacks in the United States that formed the empirical basis of the concept, we describe case examples of approaches toward public figures in the United States that did not result in injurious attacks, and we provide a synopsis of our findings on the ways in which communications predict approach.

Neuroscience and the law: philosophical differences and practical constraints.

Controversies surrounding the value of neuroscience as forensic evidence are explored from the perspective of the philosophy of mind, as well as from a practical analysis of the state of the scientific research literature. At a fundamental philosophical level there are profound differences in how law and neuroscience view the issue of criminal responsibility along the continuum from free will to determinism. At a more practical level, significant limitations in the current state of neuroimaging research constrain its ability to inform legal decision-making. Scientifically supported and unsupported forensic applications for brain imaging are discussed, and recommendations for forensic report writing are offered.

Acute dissociative responses in law enforcement officers involved in critical shooting incidents: the clinical and forensic implications.

The authors examine the prevalence of acute traumatic dissociative responses in a group of 115 law enforcement officers involved in critical incidents. Law enforcement officers were retrospectively surveyed for the presence of dissociative symptoms at the time of the critical incident, as well as for the presence of acute stress symptoms and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Results show that 90% of the officers reported experiencing a dissociative response during the critical incident. Thirty percent meet the Dissociative Criterion B of acute stress disorder under the DSM-IV. The mean number of dissociative symptoms in this group was two and one-half. In addition, 19% of the law enforcement officers reported varying forms of memory impairment for details of the incident. There were no reports of amnesia for the entire event. The clinical, forensic, and legal implications of these preliminary findings are discussed in this paper.