Psychological Assessments for Aboriginal Offenders may be Culturally Biased

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The Correctional Service of Canada faces an order to stop using key psychological risk assessments on aboriginal offenders because they may be culturally biased. In a 37-page decision, Federal Court of Canada Judge Michael Phelan said he will hold off for 30 days to give the government time to make submissions on how to establish the reliability of the important tools. For more information on this read the article posted by the Vancouver Sun.

On November 10th, Drs. Steve Hart, Karl Hanson, and Mark Olver will be presenting in a webinar on “Ewert v Canada: Implications for Forensic Practice.” This will be of interest to anyone with interest in risk assessment or cross-cultural risk assessment. A recent Federal Court of Canada case essentially prohibited the use of certain actuarial instruments with Aboriginal offenders within CSC. The two experts involved in this case were Steve Hart and Marnie Rice.

CONCEPT will be offering FREE Continuing Education (CE) credit for psychologists who attend the webinar. To register for the FREE CE credit, please click here.

(Note: You still need to send an email to Dr. Andrew Haag at ahe.schedule@gmail.com to request the link to join the webinar.)

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