Task A- The Role of a Forensic Psychologist
Kathryn A. LaFortune is a Forensic Psychologist who works at the Oklahoma State University - Centre for Health Sciences. She has served as the Chief of Forensic Psychological Services for the Oklahoma Indigent Defence System.
In the past she would have been asked to interview an inmate that’s sentence is nearing an end. She would determine the dangerousness of the person and decide whether or not he is ready to leave the prison.
Task B-Not Guilty By Reason of Mental Impairment
On 21 October, Huan Yun Xiang, a university student armed with six handguns, opened fire in the Menzies Building on Monash's Clayton campus in an econometrics class containing twelve students. People in the classroom were at first confused by the noise and by Xiang shouting, "You never understand me!" from the desk he was standing on. Huan Yun Xiang shot his classmates and teacher, killing two and injuring five.
The gunman was acquitted of the crime due to mental impairment, and is at present under psychiatric care.
Xiang pleaded not guilty before his trial to two counts of murder and five of attempted murder on account of mental impairment. Xiang felt the homicides were his destiny. He harboured delusional beliefs that his peer was an agent of evil and would destroy him academically, and that his actions on 21 October 2002 focused on fulfilling a perceived destiny to kill his classmate.
The defence and prosecution in Xiang's trial agreed that he suffered from a paranoid delusional disorder. He was ordered to be transferred to the Thomas Embling psychiatric hospital where he may be held there for as long as 25 years.
According to the Mental Health Act 1983, mental impairment refers to a state of arrested or incomplete development of mind, which includes significant impairment of intelligence and social functioning and is associated with abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible conduct.
For someone