0 review
Ethical considerations of competency restoration: The risk of decompensation in correctional settings.
Academic Journal
Competency restoration is the process of restoring a defendant to competency by the means of addressing a defendants’ barriers to competency through psychotropic medication, legal education, and referrals to additional resources. Research has been conducted related to the process, effectiveness, and a variety of other aspects of competency restoration, but little is known about the rates of decompensation after defendants have been restored to competency. Decompensation, or the deterioration of an individual’s mental health, is not only psychologically distressing to the individual experiencing it, but in this context, it has a significant impact on the speed of court proceedings. Although little research has been conducted, it is reasonable to predict that decompensation in correctional settings is high due to empirical findings that correctional settings often exacerbate inmates’ already existing mental health difficulties (Fellner, 2006; Jordan, 2011; Pinals & Callahan, 2020). The purpose of this article is to discuss ethical considerations related to the risk of decompensation in correctional settings after a defendant has been restored to competency, based on the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association [APA], 2017) and the Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychology (APA, 2013). This article also highlights the scarcity of data related to decompensation postrestoration and provides suggestions for psychologists to advocate and support defendants in the maintenance of their competency, as well as suggests future directions for the criminal legal system as a whole. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)