Dr Joseph Sakdalan2, Mrs Sabine Visser1
1Forensicare, Australia, 2Cairnmillar Institute, Hawthorn, Australia
Biography:
Dr Sakdalan is a clinical psychologist, counselling psychologist, and clinical neuropsychologist in Australia and New Zealand with over 25 years of clinical experience conducting assessments and treating complex clients with mental health problems, complex trauma, neurodevelopmental and neurocognitive disorders, personality disorders, and offending behaviours in forensic mental health and disability settings.
Mrs Sabine Visser is a senior clinical psychologist employed within the Regional Forensic Psychiatry Service, Auckland, New Zealand, for 30 years. She has extensive experience in assessing offenders in the context of court-ordered reports (e.g., fitness to stand trial, pre-sentence reports, etc.) and providing treatment in a secure facility.
Abstract:
Aim of the Study: This study aims to determine the influence of the defendant’s intelligence quotient (IQ) score and the assessor’s professional discipline on FST findings and court outcomes for ID defendants in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The study will compare IQ thresholds for fitness between psychiatrists, psychologists, and court outcomes. It also aims to assess the level of agreement between the two disciplines and identifies if the courts tend to agree more with psychiatrists’ or psychologists’ opinions on FST.
Method: This study included defendants with a current or previous IQ score of 75 and below. A sample of 146 defendants was used to evaluate relationships between IQ thresholds, the discipline of the assessor, and court outcomes.
Results and Discussion: This study's findings support previous research, indicating that psychologists were more likely to find 95% of defendants unfit if their IQ scores are largely in the mild to moderate range (95% were unfit at an IQ of 57 or below). Furthermore, the courts appeared to agree with psychologists' IQ thresholds such that 95% of ID defendants with an IQ of 53 or below were found unfit to stand trial in court. On the contrary, psychiatrists were found to have an extremely high threshold for unfitness, such that they tend to find ID defendants unfit if they are in the severe ID range (IQ score of approximately 40 and below). This paper will discuss NZ case judgements that demonstrated issues with finding mild to moderate ID defendants fit to stand trial.