Not just welfare over justice: Ethics in forensic consultation

The ethics of forensic professionalism is often couched in terms of competing individual and societal values. Indeed, the welfare of individuals is often secondary to the requirements of society, especially given the public nature of courts of law, forensic hospitals, jails, and prisons. We explore the weaknesses of this dichotomous approach to forensic ethics, offering an analysis of Psychology's historical narrative especially relevant to the national security and correctional settings. We contend that a richer, more robust ethical analysis is available if practitioners consider the multiple perspectives in the forensic encounter, and acknowledge the multiple influences of personal, professional, and social values. The setting, context, or role is not sufficient to determine the ethics of forensic practice.     

青少年暴力行为的预测和评估

青少年暴力行为是全球广泛关注的公共卫生和社会问题,了解青少年暴力行为的风险因素和预测方法有助于减少青少年暴力行为的发生.本文对青少年暴力的个体因素、社会心理因素、生物学因素进行了总结,对预测和评估研究的现状进行了复习,以期对青少年暴力行为发生的减少和进一步深入研究有所帮助.     

A Catathymic Infanticide

Abstract: A case of infanticide committed by a 37‐year‐old married man, the father of three sons, is reported. Clinically depressed since adolescence, and also diagnosed with obsessive‐compulsive disorder and a dependent personality, the subject began to worry about killing someone a decade before the homicide. Increasingly disabled by his major depression, unable to work, and confined in his home, the idea that his only recourse was to kill one of his sons became fixed and frequent. Following his fourth psychiatric hospitalization, he took his 13‐month‐old son home from day care and drowned him in the bathtub. He then called the police and reported his crime. This sudden act of intentional killing was followed by a period of emotional relief and calmness, clearly illustrating the three stages of chronic catathymic homicide.     

Intellectual Quotient of Juveniles Evaluated in a Forensic Psychiatry Clinic After Committing a Violent Crime*

Abstract: The purpose of this preliminary study is to evaluate if there is a difference between the intelligence quotient (IQ) of 27 adolescent defendants referred to the Bellevue Hospital Center Forensic Psychiatry Clinic after committing violent crimes, and those adolescents in the same age group in the general population of the United States, as defined by the norms of the psychometric testing instrument Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 4th edition (WISC‐IV). The IQ scores and sub‐scores were compared to IQ scores of the general population (mean = 100, SD = 15) using a Z‐test. The mean for the Full Scale IQ was 82.93. The means for the subtests which include Processing Speed Index, Perceptual Reasoning Index, Verbal Comprehension Index, and Working Memory Index, were: 78.48, 87.78, 86.70 (p < 0.05), and 90.78 (p = 0.09) respectively. There is a statistically significant difference in the IQ scores of the violent juveniles studied when compared to the general population.     

Either or? Reconciling Findings on Mental Health and Extremism using a Dimensional Rather than Categorical Paradigm

The background for this paper is the debate over what role mental illness plays in radicalization to violent extremism. While one camp points to cases of abnormal functioning of perpetrators, another argues that normal psychological mechanisms are central. Through a review of these perspectives, it becomes clear that mental illness cannot be ruled out as an epi‐phenomenon, but is not a necessary condition either. The paper draws on work in psychiatric nosology on dimensional and categorical conceptions of illness and argues that the perspectives in this literature reflect a categorical approach to normal and abnormal functioning. Under a dimensional perspective, findings converge. The paper concludes by showing how this new dimensional approach to the role of mental illness in radicalization has implications for the design of risk assessment tools and leads to the recommendation for stronger inter‐agency cooperation between mental health professionals, social services, and police and intelligence services.     

法医学研究中的伦理审查建设

法医学研究伦理审查既是法医学研究管理工作的内容,也是法医学研究的对象,本文针对法医学研究中的伦理审查问题,论述开展伦理审查的必要性,并对法医学研究伦理审查委员会建设指导原则进行探讨,呼吁开展伦理审查建设。     

Suicide behind bars: trends, inconsistencies, and practical implications

The results of two comprehensive approaches are compared: the nationwide surveys of suicides in U.S. jails by Hayes and the international meta-analyses of suicides in jails and prisons by Fazel et al. Factors are classified as demographic, situational, clinical, and methodical. More than 50% of U.S. jail suicide victims were men, white, unmarried, under 28 years of age, charged with minor or drug-related offenses, and intoxicated with drugs or alcohol. Suicides significantly occurred in isolation. Suicide victims in the international study were significantly (p < 0.001) men, white, married, pretrial, and charged with or convicted of violent offenses. Psychiatric diagnosis, alcohol abuse, taking psychotropic medication, and suicidal ideation were also positively correlated in the international study, but suicide victims were distributed more evenly over age-groups. Results of other studies illustrate the near universality of some findings. Three theories of suicide are briefly discussed.     

Violence prevention in psychiatry: an umbrella review of interventions in general and forensic psychiatry

Relative risks of violence in psychiatric patients are high compared to the general population and existing evidence in non-psychiatric populations may not translate to reductions in violence in psychiatric populations. We searched 10 databases including Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL and Scopus, from inception until August 2015 for systematic reviews and meta-analyses of violence prevention interventions in psychiatry. Reviews were included if they used a hard outcome measure (i.e. police or hospital recorded violence, or reincarceration) and contained randomized or non-randomized controlled studies. Five reviews met our inclusion criteria (n = 8876 patients in total), of which four received a GRADE rating of ‘low’ or ‘very low’. Three randomized studies (n = 636) reported that therapeutic community interventions may reduce reincarceration in drug-using offenders with co-occurring mental illness (‘moderate’ GRADE rating). The lack of intervention research in violence prevention in general and forensic psychiatry suggests that interventions from non-psychiatric populations may need to be relied upon.     

Criminal law and mentally ill offenders in comparative perspective

Abstract

In this stick we compare legal arrangements dealing with mentally disordered offenders in the criminal law systems ct Belgium, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. To describe relevant diffesenoes and similarities in the arrangemeats, we used a checklist containing antral aspects of adjudication, assessment and treatment of mentally ill offenders. These aspects concern: (1) the legal classifications of mental illnesses that can lead to exclusion of criminal responsibility: (2) the acceptance of diminished capacity as a partial excuse; (3) the possibilities for imposing security measures of compulsory treatment instead of or next to criminal punishment; (4) the conditions for their imposition in terms of seriousness of crimes committed and dangerousness of offenders; (5) the available hospitals or special clinics for executing security measures; (6) the role and task of forensic mental health professionals in assessing the offender's state of mind and in advising compulsory treatment; (7) the rules for duration, prolongation and termination of the measures. The findings of this comparative analysis are evaluated in light of legal protection for mentally disordered offenders.