#55 – Forensic Psychologist and Adult Parole Board Member Dr David Curnow
Dr David Curnow is a Forensic Psychologist, full time member of the Adult Parole Board of Victoria and expert on White Collar Crime. He is the first Forensic Psychologist to sit on the Adult Parole Board, who's role is to make independent and appropriate decisions in relation to:
- release of prisoners on supervised conditional release
- cancellation of orders and return of offenders to prison custody
- submission of reports to the Minister for Corrections as required by legislation
Dr Curnow also provides consultancy services and training to corporations on such topics as embezzlement and employee theft. His PhD examined both personality and decision making of incarcerated embezzlers who took from 100k to 25 million dollars from their organisations. Other specialist training programs he presents include Violence Treatment, Forensic Interviewing and Offence Mapping.
David has provided casual lecturing at a variety of universities. He currently teachers at RMIT university in their Criminal Justice Degree on risk assessment and working with violent men. Dr Curnow also provides supervision for Executive level Psychologists.
Earlier in his career David worked at the Department of Justice as the Regional Manager of Offending Behaviour Programs. Prior to this he was a senior clinician for Corrections Victoria.
David also has a strong interest in Chronic Pain. His Master's thesis examined the assessment of malingering of chronic low back pain. One of his great loves is group work and he strongly encourages psychologists to consider management roles, enabling them to effect change at a systematic level!
Feedback
Please leave Dr David Curnow or myself a comment or some feedback, we’d love to hear from you and I’ll respond to everyone!
- # 63 – Paediatric Chronic Pain with Dr Nicki Ferencz - November 13, 2020
- # 64 – Chronic Pain with Sports and Exercise Psychologist Damien Stewart - November 11, 2020
- # 62 – Pain Management with Dr Jacqui Stanford - November 8, 2020
Hi Amy,
I’m Cass… I’m currently a psychology student, studying Psychological Science, with the desire to go into Neuropsychology.
Firstly, I love this site. It’s great to be exposed to such a diverse range of psychologist practicing in different areas. It’s a diversity that I find isn’t openly discussed at Uni, as I find it’s either forensic psych or clinical. Therefore this is a great forum to learn about the diversity in psychology.
I’m currently working full-time as a Senior Parole Officer for Dept of Justice. Ive been working there for 5 years now and have a huge passion for working with offenders. I really enjoyed this podcast with Dr David Curnow, as for me, I love learning how people progress within their careers – particularly in Corrections.
Also, I love that this really explained Parole & the Justice System given there’s been so much controversy – especially over the past few years.
I really appreciate that this forum explained it so perfectly of what we do in the Parole sector which allowed my fellow classmates to have such a clear understanding of what I do, and how so many measures and risk assessments are put in place to ensure community safety. The community lacks the education of understanding the complexities and the length of assessments, and profressional judgements that occur prior to releasing any offender on Parole – So, it’s great that Dr Curnow had this opportunity to explain this to the upcoming psychologists on this forum.
So, thanks Amy, and thank-you Dr David Curnow, its been great listening to your story & hearing your passion.
Thanks for your comment Cass. Glad you got so much out of this episode. I’ll pass your comment on to David.
Warmly,
Amy
Hi Amy,
I just had to comment and say thank you to Dr Curnow for such an excellent interview. I am so glad he was able to stay on for as long as he did, I have listened to this one three times now.
His insights in to working in the forensic field are so valuable, and hearing about his work in white-collar crime is fascinating.
Thank you!
Caity