NCJ Number
209112
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 50 Issue: 2 Dated: March 2005 Pages: 465-469
Date Published
March 2005
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This pilot study examined whether a sample (n=15) of mentally ill defendants ruled to be incompetent to stand trial improved on competency measures after viewing video segments of the television crime-drama "Law & Order," among other techniques.
Abstract
The video viewing was part of the program of the Competency Restoration Group (CRG) at the Rochester Regional Forensic Unit in Rochester, NY. The CRG is a psychoeducation group that uses video presentation, group discussion, and legal-rights education to promote adjudicative capacity in patients found incompetent to stand trial. Approximately half of the CRG curriculum involved the viewing of video segments of "Law & Order." The authors hypothesized that participation in at least one cycle of the CRG's curriculum would produce improvement in the areas of understanding, reasoning, and appreciation. To test this hypothesis, patients were screened with the MacArthur competence Assessment Tool-Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT-CA) prior to starting the group and after completing a cycle of the CRG curriculum. The Wilcoxon signed ranks test was used to analyze the MacCAT-CA results before and after program participation. The testing found significant posttest differences in the hypothesized direction for each of the three subsections of Understanding, Reasoning, and Appreciation as well as the total MacCAT-CA scores. Study limitations are noted to be the lack of a control group and a small study population. 4 tables and 20 references