International journal of law and psychiatry
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Int J Law Psychiatry · Jan 2013
Practice informs the next generation of behavioral health and criminal justice interventions.
Specialized interventions, such as police and jail diversion, mental health courts, specialized probation, forensic assertive community treatment, designed to engage justice-involved persons with serious mental illnesses, have expanded over the past two decades. Some of these "first generation" interventions have demonstrated efficacy and several have earned recognition as evidence-based practices. Yet, overall, they have not appreciably reduced the prevalence of persons with serious mental illnesses involved in the criminal justice system. ⋯ Respondents reported that their clients have a constellation of problems with different origins, etiologies, and symptoms, often crossing over the boundaries of mental illness, addictions, and antisocial pathologies. According to the practitioners working with justice-involved clients with mental illnesses, responding effectively requires knowledge of many different problems, expertise to respond to them, and an understanding of how these problems interact when they co-occur. The poly-problems of these clients suggest the need for an integrated and comprehensive approach, which is challenged by the fragmented and diverse ideologies of the behavioral health, criminal justice, and social service systems.
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Int J Law Psychiatry · Jan 2013
Attitudes among judiciary and junior clerks toward the survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
Childhood sexual abuse is a growing concern throughout the world, although the legal sequelae of this phenomenon are frequently neglected. We aimed to reveal and compare the attitudes of judiciary and junior clerks toward sexually abused children that might contribute to these sequelae. We divided 302 study participants into two groups of judiciary members and junior clerks. ⋯ Interestingly, significantly more judiciary than junior clerks believed that a "CSA survivor can control his/her rage" (p=0.001), and significantly more of the junior clerks did not believe that "CSA survivors do not behave impulsively" (p=0.034). Both groups of legal professionals in this study appear to distance themselves from or have negative thoughts about CSA survivors, particularly when the issue involves their own children and/or social situations. Along with other factors, these negative assumptions might also contribute to lower prosecution rates and retestifying procedures.