International journal of law and psychiatry
-
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.
-
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.
-
Int J Law Psychiatry · Jul 2012
Voluntary and involuntary care: three-year study of demographic and diagnostic admission statistics at an inner-city adult psychiatry unit.
Individuals with mental disorders can, under specific circumstances, be detained and treated against their wishes. In 2009, there were 1633 involuntary admissions in Ireland, accounting for 8.1% of all psychiatric admissions. We examined demographic and diagnostic factors associated with involuntary admission in a general adult psychiatry service in Dublin's north inner-city over a retrospective three-year period. ⋯ Diagnosis accounts for one third of the variance in admission status between individuals. Further study is required to determine what factors account for the remaining two thirds (e.g. symptoms, insight) and to clarify better the relationships between admission status, diagnosis and country of origin. There is a strong need for enhanced focus on the mental health needs of individuals from outside of Ireland, especially in Dublin's north inner-city.
-
Int J Law Psychiatry · May 2012
Inpatient treatment in the psychiatric department of a German prison hospital.
Although the construct of psychic incompetence can prevent severely mentally disturbed persons from being imprisoned in Germany, the prevalence of mentally disordered persons who are detained is high. Data describing the characteristics of mentally disturbed detainees in Germany are scarce. The following study uses data from a psychiatric care institution in a prison to examine the distribution of psychiatric diagnoses in relation to age, nationality and legal status. The distribution of diagnoses is compared to that of the psychiatric department at a Berlin community hospital. ⋯ Personality disorders were more frequently diagnosed in German than in non-German patients. The burden of personality disorders among mentally ill prison detainees in Berlin Prison Hospital was not significantly higher than that of a Berlin community hospital. The percentage of non-German patients in the psychiatric department of the Berlin Prison Hospital was more than two times higher than in a psychiatric department of a community hospital. The lower-than-expected rate of suicide attempts among pre-trial detainees may be an indicator of a beneficial effect of the treatment setting in the psychiatric department of Berlin Prison Hospital.
-
Int J Law Psychiatry · Jan 2012
Poisoned social climate, collective responsibility, and the abuse at Abu Ghraib--Or, the establishment of "rule that is lack of rule".
The authors draw upon the experiences of one of the co-authors as an expert witness in sociology for mitigation at three of the courts-martial pertaining to the abuse at Abu Ghraib that were held at Ft. Hood, Texas in the year 2005 (for Javal Davis, Sabrina Harman, and Lynndie England). In addition, this paper is based upon the thousands of pages of affidavits, testimony, and U. ⋯ These internal government reports, as well as the Levin-McCain report, point to collective responsibility and the responsibility of individuals high in the chain of command for establishing unlawful techniques. We review the shortcomings of a purely psychological approach for understanding the abuse, and turn to Durkheim's original understanding of anomie as a state of social derangement or rule by lack of rule to introduce the ideas of the social origins of and social responsibility for the abuse. We conclude with sociological suggestions for reforming some of the legal, medical, psychiatric, and other professional complicity in the abuse at Abu Ghraib.