This chapter gives an overview of research on offenders with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs). We present a history of FASDs and assessment challenges, and describe the diagnostic process. Then we present the epidemiology of FASDs in young offenders: challenges with estimating the prevalence of FASDs; prevalence of FASDs in the criminal justice system; FASD prevalence in young offenders in comparison with other neurodevelopmental disorders; and the patterns, risk and protective factors of justice system encounters in young offenders with FASDs. We then focus on the relationship between FASDs and the criminal justice system in young offenders. We discuss the path to criminal justice encounters and the vulnerabilities of FASD-impacted individuals during investigative interviews. Finally, we discuss the ability to stand trials in young offenders with neurodevelopmental disorders with a focus on FASDs, the roles that evidence of FASDs plays in judicial proceedings, fitness to stand trial, FASD knowledge and awareness among criminal justice system professionals, and give recommendations for questioning individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders during judicial proceedings.

The early conceptualization of Hugo Münsterberg in1908 laid the foundation for understanding different types of false confession, but tangible theoretical developments, assessment methodology of cases of disputed confessions, and empirical evidence base did not emerge until the 1980s. The gradual emergence of the science of false confession began with real life cases of disputed confessions in the 1970s and 1980s and the lessons that the cases taught scientists and expert witnesses interested in false confessions and psychological vulnerabilities. Theoretical developments led to better understanding of different types of false confessions. The psychological evaluation of real-life cases raised pertinent research questions, led to the development of innovative methodology and validated psychometric tests, and the collection of evolving empirical databases relevant to the evaluation of new cases. There is now a substantial evidence base for the science of false confession. This chapter explains its origin, development, and challenges.

Research on factors that can affect the accuracy of children’s autobiographical remembering has important implications for understanding the abilities of young witnesses to provide legal testimony. In this chapter, I review our own research inspired by Professor Ornstein’s information-processing framework for examining children’s memory. Specifically, I focus on one factor that has much potential to influence how children remember their experiences, namely everyday conversations with peers and parents. Our studies show not only that the content of natural conversations can shape children’s event memory but that such exchanges can prompt the generation of entirely false narratives that are more detailed than true accounts of experience. Further, our work demonstrates various factors that can boost the damaging effects of conversationally conveyed misinformation. Implications of this collection of findings for children’s testimony are discussed.

Responding to a controversy regarding young witnesses’ legal testimony in cases of child abuse, Professor Ornstein implemented a program of research designed to inform the assessment of children’s reports of forensically relevant events. This chapter provides an overview of this extensive work. Following a discussion of the extant scientific and societal contexts, we examine the research paradigm that enabled Ornstein and his colleagues to investigate ethically children’s reports of real-world, sometimes stressful experiences under conditions of experimental control. Next, we describe differences in the event reports provided by children between the ages of 3 and 7 as documented in this research, and explore the underlying explanations for these differences. We continue with an examination of the contributions of Ornstein and his colleagues for obtaining and evaluating children’s eyewitness testimony, and discuss some continuing challenges for understanding children’s memory for salient experiences.

This chapter examines hypnosis. It begins with a description of the history of hypnosis, including Mesmer, Charcot and Freud. It then examines the process of hypnotic induction, including stage hypnosis. The chapter examines the hypnotic trance, asking what makes good hypnotic subjects (and good hypnotists), and at the construct of suggestibility. It then asks if the hypnotic trance is indeed a special state involving dissociation and a ‘hidden observer’, or whether it is mediated by compliance, as the non-state theorists propose. The chapter then discusses particular uses of hypnosis, such as hypnotherapy - for example in the cessation of smoking - recovering memories, hypnotic amnesia and hypnotic anaesthesia. The chapter considers whether hypnosis is dangerous and whether, under hypnosis, people can be made to do things they don’t really want to do. It examines the neuroscience of hypnosis, considering the implications of neural markers of hypnotism for non-state theories of the hypnotic trance. We conclude with a discussion of self-hypnosis, and finally with what hypnosis tells us about cognitive processing.