Correctional psychology

Correctional psychology concerns the assessment and treatment of persons who commit crimes.

Dr. King's research lab studies the assessment of risk for committing crimes in general, the assessment of other factors relevant to correctional rehabilitation, traditional rehabilitation services and novel solutions for reducing criminogenic risk, and potential stigma concerning persons who are justice-involved.

Dr. King's current directions within this research theme are as follows.

  1. The clinical utility of incorporating the self-perceptions of justice-involved persons and digital technologies into correctional human services, including the development of the latter.
  2. The interpretability of measures of developmental maturity and criminal sophistication, as used in evaluations of justice-involved juveniles, by examining the comparative performance of justice-involved young adults on these measures.
  3. Validation of theories underlying correctional human service principles.

Dr. King also has professional interests in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and supervises a theory- and evidence-informed DBT training clinic that provides skills training to justice-involved persons undergoing reentry back to the community. In addition to quality improvement activities, eventual program evaluation work is anticipated.

Recent representative correctional psychology publications:

King, C. M., Grove, L., Bomysoad, R., & Gonzalez, K. (in press). Assessment and intervention technologies in juvenile justice. In G. Liell, L. Jones, & M. Fisher (Eds.), Challenging bias in forensic psychological assessment and testing. Taylor & Francis.

King, C. M., & Stettler, B. (in press). Risk Needs Responsivity Model. In R. Roesch (Vol. Ed.), Psychology and law, a volume of Routledge encyclopedia of psychology in the real world. Routledge.

Grove, L., King, C. M., Bomysoad, R., Vasquez, L., & Kois, L. E. (2021). Technology for assessment and treatment of justice-involved youth: A systematic literature review. Law and Human Behavior, 45(5), 413–426. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000467

King, C. M., & Heilbrun, K. (2021). Effects of criminogenic risk–needs assessment feedback during pre-release correctional rehabilitation. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 48(5), 575–595. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854820968604

Blonigen, D., King, C. M., & Timko, D. (2019). Criminal justice involvement among veterans. In J. Tsai & E. Seamone (Eds.), Intersections between mental health and law among veterans (pp. 13–44). Springer.

DeMatteo, D., King, C. M., & Filone, S. (2019). Juvenile offenders: Treatment models and approaches. In R. D. Morgan (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of criminal psychology (pp. 743–747). SAGE.

DeMatteo, D., Filone, S., & King, C. M. (2019). Juvenile offenders: Developmental treatment considerations. In R. D. Morgan (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of criminal psychology (pp. 739–743). SAGE.

King, C. M., Heilbrun K., Kim, N. Y., McWilliams, K., Phillips, S., Barbera, J., & Fretz, R. (2017). Tablet computers and forensic and correctional psychological assessment: A randomized controlled study. Law and Human Behavior, 41(5), 468–477. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000245

King, C. M. (2017, Winter). Bias-free language and law-psychology. AP-LS News, 5–6.