The Institute of Legal Medicine of Las Palmas has a total of 11 forensic psychologists and more than half have been “on long-term leave.” This is how the general director of Relations with the Administration of Justice of the Government of the Canary Islands, Mónica Ceballos, has justified the situation that is being experienced in the Arrecife Courts, with problems processing reports of sexual assault on minors due to the lack of these experts.
“There were six psychologists on long-term leave, one of them joined a few days ago, so there are five left, which has implied a dysfunction in the service,” she pointed out on Radio Lanzarote – Onda Cero, noting that when she joined the position in December, “practically all of these people were on leave.”
In any case, she also admits that the situation has become more serious because they started with an insufficient staff. “For some years now, the staff has not been updated. Right now we are working on the study of the personnel we have, the workload of psychologists, social workers and educators who are part of the technical teams of the Institute of Legal Medicine, to size them to the reality and current needs of the Courts,” she said.
Regarding the high number of absences, she believes that it may be related precisely to that overload of work. “It is an issue that worries us, due to the impact it has on these files, and at this time we are trying to determine the causes, because they must obviously have some justification that the administration should know and should face to resolve it,” she said.
In this regard, she states that they are “considering” carrying out psychosocial risk studies “to find out the cause of these absences, because they are peculiar services that are subject to a lot of stress”. “They are psychologists, social workers and educators who have obviously been working with minors for years, and we should study the conditions to see if we can or should solve the situation of these professionals and if that resolution depends on us,” she said.
In addition, she assures that they are already working on expanding the staff and that the selection of six psychologists to reinforce the service “in the coming years” is underway.
No plans to assign one to Lanzarote
Regarding the possibility of assigning one to Lanzarote - which does not have its own places and has to request a professional from the Institute in Gran Canaria every time a need arises - Ceballos has limited herself to responding that “we have to see the workload.”
“You cannot have a psychologist or technical team assigned to an island that does not have many evaluations, and have an overload on another island. It is another of the things that we are studying, because on many occasions the solution does not come in the reinforcement of personnel. There are many organizational issues to review, because many times perhaps the reorganization of services implies better efficiency and better provision of services.”
According to the director of Relations with the Administration of Justice, that is where they are “making an effort to assess the causes of the problems, which cause so much impact on society and in the media.”
Ceballos was responding to the news published by La Voz de Lanzarote last Thursday, when the appearances of two children, one 3 years old and another 8 years old, had to be suspended, who were to testify before the Court of Instruction in the presence of a psychologist, as alleged victims of sexual assault. The magistrate had requested their presence for that date two months earlier, but on the same day of the appearance, the Institute responded that it had not been able to send it due to “the deficit of forensic psychologists” in its staff.
That writing did not refer to the absences, but it did refer to the need for “hiring personnel”, underlining that it is the responsibility of the General Directorate of Relations with the Administration of Justice”. In addition, it informed the Court that “recently a collaboration agreement has been reached” with a company, Godoy Consultores y Auditores, to provide psychologists to carry out this type of test.
In this regard, the director of Relations with the Administration of Justice has pointed out that in reality that “possibility already existed for years”. “It is foreseen in a contract that we have for expert reports for some years, and the possibilities of entrusting these external psychologists are studied on a case-by-case basis,” she explained, defending that “it is an option that the management of the Institute of Legal Medicine values, because depending on the case, the quality and the report that is issued must be guaranteed, that it has the same guarantees.”
“This form has been used to immediately attend to the reports that are most urgent, to prevent this delay from causing any type of damage to the minors,” Ceballos points out.
However, no psychologist, neither external nor from their own staff, attended the scheduled statements last week in Lanzarote. And this forced them to be suspended, with what this implies, not only a delay in the investigation of the case, but also difficulty for the magistrate who must adopt possible precautionary measures on the accused, who in one of the cases is the child's father.
According to Mónica Ceballos, the director of the Institute of Legal Medicine has informed her that the case of these children will now be processed “immediately”. “They have already been commissioned and are waiting for the reports to be issued,” she stated. However, it should be remembered that the first step requested by the Court was the presence of a psychologist in the interrogation of the victims, who have not yet been able to testify.
Unfilled absences
Regarding why these "long-term" absences of the psychologists of the Institute of Legal Medicine have not been covered, she has alleged that the reserve lists of interim officials of the Government of the Canary Islands have been “exhausted for some time, both of labor psychologists and officials, which has implied the impossibility of replacing them immediately.”
In addition, she has defended that “the replacement of these absences would not imply an immediate solution either, because they are specialized and highly qualified technical teams, which are obviously for what they are, for the courts, to attend to minors who are victims of crimes as they could be for juvenile offenders.”
