Assessing competency competently: toward a rational standard for competency-to-stand-trial assessments.

This article reports on a survey of forensic psychiatrists and psychologists who read two case study vignettes and assessed whether each criminal defendant was competent to stand trial, using three differently worded standards of competency: one that focused on whether the defendant's thinking was rational, a second that focused on whether the defendant's behavior was rational, and a third that did not use the word "rational." The objective was to discover whether forensic examiners would distinguish among the standards (i.e.

Evaluating wickedness in children.

This article has reviewed one model for evaluating badly behaving or wicked children. Bad behavior is the final common pathway of a variety of biological, psychological, social, and cultural factors, and a proper evaluation requires knowledge of factors and clinical judgment as to the weight given to each factor.