Research & Consultation
Dr. Goossens is available for independent research and policy consulting, as well as on-demand workshops and seminars.
Key Research Areas
Risk Assessment & Communication
Forensic Systems & Legal Policy
Interpersonal Violence & Trauma
Implementation Science in Psychology
Dr. Goossens has studied how forensic risk assessments (like the SARA or Static-99R) are actually written, shared, and understood. Her work has examined how different audiences—from legal professionals to survivors—interpret risk statistics and how personal preconceptions influence their final decision-making.
Her research has evaluated how laws and psychiatric designations affect individuals in the justice system. This includes extensive tracking of Canada’s "Not Criminally Responsible" (NCR) framework, analyzing the public stigma surrounding the insanity defense, and studying systemic issues like coercion in forensic healthcare.
Dr. Goossens' research also focuses on intimate partner violence (IPV), victimization histories, and underserved groups. Prior publications have focused on furthering the Decision-making In Abusive Relationships Interview (DIARI: Nicholls, Hilterman, & Goossens, 2017), how domestic violence risk tools perform in court, and how lifetime and offense-related trauma affects forensic patients.
Dr. Goossens has written about what best practice may look like in forensic settings, and how clinical best practices spread through professional networks. Her work treats knowledge like a contagion, showing that training highly connected "key players" can drastically accelerate how fast frontline clinicians adopt structured risk tools.
Featured Publications
2026
- Risk communication practices in risk assessment tools: A systematic review across violent, sexual, or general offending. I Goossens, LM Helmus, J Viljoen. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. Online First.
- Are Risk Assessment Tools More Accurate Than Unstructured Judgments in Predicting Violent, Any, and Sexual Offending? A Meta-Analysis of Direct Comparison Studies. JL Viljoen, I Goossens, S Monjazeb, DM Cochrane, LM Vargen, ... Behavioral Sciences & The Law 44 (1), 164-165.
2025
- A comprehensive examination of the role of the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment Guide, Domestic Violence Risk Appraisal Guide, Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment, and … I Goossens, W Fox, M Peikarnegar. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management 12 (2), 91.
- Comparing Static-99R and STABLE-2007 profiles of people convicted of sexual offences in Hong Kong to Western normative data. SSF Lam, I Goossens, LM Helmus. Journal of Sexual Aggression 31 (2), 260-273.
- Microcosms of violence among street gang members: Social contagion, propensity to violence, and gang embeddedness. Y Charette, I Goossens. Journal of Criminal Justice 98, 102405.​
2024
Communication breakdown: what do we know about offending risk communication, and where to go from here? I Goossens. Simon Fraser University.
2022
Improving police procedures for dealing with mental illness. R Roesch, I Goossens. Police Psychology, 173-188.
2021
- Criminalization of HIV: Ethical and legal issues for the practice of psychology in Canada. I Goossens, LM Vargen, M Wedman, DA Connolly. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne 62 (3), 304.
- #AbolishNCR: A qualitative analysis of social media narratives around the insanity defense. I Goossens, M Jordan, T Nicholls. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 63 (2), 46-67.
- Is knowledge contagious? Diffusion of violence-risk-reporting practices across clinicians’ professional networks. Y Charette, I Goossens, MC Seto, TL Nicholls, AG Crocker. Clinical Psychological Science 9 (2), 284-293.
- Do structured risk assessments predict violent, any, and sexual offending better than unstructured judgment? An umbrella review. JL Viljoen, LM Vargen, DM Cochrane, MR Jonnson, I Goossens, ... Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 27 (1), 79.
2020
Women and girls with psychopathic characteristics. TLG Nicholls, I Goossens, CL Odgers, DJ Cooke. The Wiley international handbook on psychopathic disorders and the law, 465-505.