2007-or9-Forensic assessments in Slovenia: The prevalent usage of
questionable psychological tools
Forensic experts evaluate psychological and legal constructs to provide
a reliable scientific information to a judge or jury. Unfortunately,
forensic psychologists do not have clear standards to follow and as
such, they do not have clear guidance to achieve an acceptable level of
scientific verifiability necessary in forensic assessments. Only
guidelines considering best practices are available which are too
general and non-binding. Therefore, it is hard to know how exactly
forensic evaluators gain and interpret information, which is then used
to answer legal questions.
Practice surveys may identify professional trends among experts and give
insight into standards applied and reveal potential problems as well.
Thus, the practice of Slovenian psychological expert witnesses was
examined by the review of written expert opinions which were created
from 2003 to 2018. Courts were requested to allow review of all court
cases were a psychological expert opinion was involved in court
decisions. Some cases are still undergoing court procedures; therefore,
according to permissions granted and cases included in the research 60%
of all criminal and civil cases were analysed. The review of expert
opinions was focused on the use of specific psychological tools (tests)
which were noted as applied in written expert opinions.
In 150 criminal and civil expert witness opinions, various psychological
tools were used 318 times. Thus, a typical personal assessment consisted
of an interview, two psychological tests and if children were involved
psychologists additionally and typically included observation of a
parent-child interaction. The most used tools were projective tests,
which were used in 101 (67%) of all forensic evaluations. The Rorschach
Inkblot test was used in 73 (23%) of cases, Bender Visual Motor Gestalt
Test (Bender-Gestalt test) in 32 (10%) cases, various children's
drawings techniques (e.g. family, house, person, tree) were used in 63
(20%) cases, the Sacks Sentence Completion Test (SSCT) and Thematic
Apperception Test (TAT) were each used in 7 (2%) of all cases. In the
cases of alleged sexual abuse of children, Anatomical dolls were used at
least two times (in five such cases psychologists did not report what
projective technique was used, they had only noted, “a projective test”).
Objective multiscale inventories were used in 132 (41%) personal
assessments. The most frequently applied objective tests were
Wechsler–Bellevue Intelligence Scales (WB-II, WAIS-IV, and WISC-III)
which were used in 27 (8%) cases, Plutchik's Emotion Profile Index (EPI)
was used in 21 (7%) cases, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory
(MCMI-II) in 10 (3%), and MMPI-2 in 6 (2%) of analysed cases.
Additionally, in 36 (24%) of expert opinions only an interview and
observation with no psychological tests were applied. Generally, most
psychological tests that are frequently used are not standardized, and
no adequate norms are provided for interpretation of test results.
Findings presented are not consistent with contemporary findings
elsewhere. Moreover, they are mostly opposing. Typically, the most used
tests in forensic evaluations are objective tests; however, in Slovenia
projective tests are used in most evaluations. It seems that in Slovenia
forensic evaluations still and at least partly rely on the use of
controversial projective techniques and non-standardized instruments
without normative references. This raises concerns about validity of
forensic information provided to courts. Additionally, no expert opinion
was found where a psychologist would cite a reference, explain
scientific findings or general scientific opinion about the matter
discussed, and no detailed description of an expert opinion construction
was found. Typically, expert opinions are based on “ipse dixit” or “it
is just how it is"; thus, they are based on assertions without
scientific grounding or assumptions without verification.
Expert witness conclusions which rely on psychological tools with low
validity or reliability, lead to speculations or educated guessing about
characteristics of persons assessed. Therefore, by unreliable and
speculative expert opinions, courts may be misled into unjust and
harmful decisions. The possible reasons for such a worrying situation in
Slovenia may be the absence of a proper education of psychologists who
are not aware of the difference in standards of practice between
clinical and forensic psychology. Perhaps more importantly, it appears
that most Slovenian forensic experts may not be aware that forensic
testing requires reliance on scientifically based, standardized and
empirically tested methods. This review of the practice may be the first
step into necessary changes aimed to provide more reliable and ethically
congruent information to courts.