Adolescents and Adults Capacities as Trial Defendants - Essay Example

The instrument's items included Understanding, Reasoning, and Appreciation where their answers are scored according to a set of criteria established by the authors of the instrument.

Although the instrument has been successfully applied in determining the competency of adults to participate in their trial and is widely used by forensic mental health professionals, this was the first time it was used on youths. Since this is the case, we may very well speculate that the tool may produce flawed results. The second method was the MacArthur Judgment Evaluation (MacJEN) used to examine the existence and degree of judgment immaturity especially the potential relation between immaturity and choices that defendants make in the course of adjudication.

Due to the structure and objectivity of the questions and solicited responses, the tool allows not only the examination of differences in choices across ages but can also determine the relationship between choices and psychosocial factors such as risk appraisal, future orientation, and resistance to peer influence. Prior to the execution of the survey, all project directors and research assistants were made to undergo several days of training. Inter-rater reliability for the MacCAT-CA was assessed twice using all scorers (25 research assistants) at all four of the study sites.

MacJEN was also executed with the utmost regard for the sample since they belonged to the vulnerable group. All in all, the study was very scientific with the data processed and statistically analyzed with the proper method such as Manova. The preparation was meticulous and so were the gathering and processing of data.