Exam 15: Abnormal Psychology and the Law

Court rulings have established that criminal defendants who are found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a mental hospital may ______ than the time they would have Served in jail had they been convicted of the crime.

Therapists are not obligated by state laws to breach confidentiality, even to warn intended victims of threats of violence made against them by their clients.

Incorrectly predicting the occurrence of a problematic behavior is known as a(n) ______.

In the 1979 case of Rogers v. Okin, the court ruled that ______ has a right to exercise bad judgment within certain broad limits.

Psychologists and other mental health professionals can rely on their clinical judgment to accurately predict the dangerousness of their patients.

In the Tarasoff case, the court ruled that a therapist ______.

In 1992, the United States Supreme Court ruled that burden of proof for determining competence to stand trial lies with the prosecution.

The Tarasoff ruling occurred in ______.

In dealing with the insanity defense, jurors must cope with which of the following challenges?

Short-term predictions of violence are more accurate than longer term predictions.

Clinical predictions of dangerousness are generally less accurate than ______.

In predicting dangerousness, clinicians tend to have an excess of ______.

An attempt to assassinate the president of the United States was seen by millions of television viewers, but the would-be assassin was found not guilty by a court of law.

The Tarasoff ruling places the therapist's duty to warn in direct conflict with ______.

The court case in which the court found that individuals must be judged to be both mentally ill and to present a clear and present danger to themselves or others in order to be involuntarily Hospitalized was ______.

Both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association have gone on record stating that ______ can reliably predict violence among those they treat.

When a potentially violent patient is being released from the hospital, what is considered the best predictor of future violence?

Psychologists and other mental-health professionals are quite accurate when it comes to predicting dangerousness of the people they treat.

The insanity defense is actually used in ______ percent of all felony cases.

Unless there is danger or inappropriateness to a treatment program, psychiatric hospital patients have a right to wear their own clothes rather than uniforms.