Guidance for Improving Forensic Reports: A Review of Common Errors

Abstract

This study employed a national sample of forensic reports that had been critiqued by a panel of advanced forensic mental-health practitioners serving as reviewers for the American Board of Forensic Psychology. The study describes all of the discrete types of faults that reviewers encountered in the reports, and then converts them to prescriptive statements to guide forensic report writing. The study also identifies the most frequent report-writing problems in this sample. The results were not intended to describe the quality of forensic reports in the U.S., but rather to offer guidance for improving the quality of forensic reports.