Generational Wartime Behavioral Health Crises: Part One of a Preliminary Analysis

As the USA enters into its 12th year of war, the persistent drum beat of negative news headlines of unmet mental health and social needs of veterans fuels public perception of a twenty-first century military behavioral health crisis. For many Americans, the status quo harkens back to previous wartime crises. Wartime mental health crises continue to happen, despite the personal and financial consequences. This paper address this crisis by carefully tracking the critical decisions that lead to the current situation. This is the first of a two-part preliminary analysis of generational wartime behavioral health crises. We first define wartime mental health crises and how current and past conditions qualify as such a crisis. Next, we point out that there is a continual underestimate of war and post-wartime behavioral health needs. We then provide an extensive review of official military records, government investigations, and news media reports; a compelling evidence of a major crisis in the twenty-first century. In the final section of the paper, we discuss the themes that emerged from the review that both confirm the generational failure to learn fundamental war trauma lessons.     

Exploring Options Including Class Action to Transform Military Mental Healthcare and End the Generational Cycle of Preventable Wartime Behavioral Health Crises

This article examines three major options for transforming military mental healthcare in order to end the pattern of self-inflicted and largely preventable wartime behavioral health crises plaguing American veterans, their families, and broader society since the turn of the twentieth century. Evidence is provided that the first option of maintaining the status quo consisting of internal incremental changes has proven largely ineffectual in addressing the broader issues responsible for perpetuating wartime crises. The second option describes necessary transformative changes required to end the cycle of mental health neglect and preventable crises. However, there are no signs that responsible government agencies are inclined to compel the military to overhaul its system. Lastly, we offer a legal analysis for an unprecedented class action against the Department of Defense to effect change. After reviewing the history of tort law and the US military’s immunity from the Feres Doctrine, we examine legal precedents both domestic and aboard. Legal strategies are described in detail from a landmark class action by British soldiers against the Ministry of Defense (MoD) or Multiple Claimants v. MoD (2003) who sued for failure to properly identify and treat predictable war stress injury like post-traumatic stress disorder. The successful claims from individual military plaintiffs have been instrumental in compelling the MoD to implement necessary reforms of its mental health services and possibly end their cycle of neglect and preventable wartime crises. If successful, the proposed American class action will establish a critical precedent to elevate the importance of mental healthcare on equal footing with physical medicine both within and outside of the military.     

Law enforcement response to mental health crises: citizen risk factors and preferences for social policy*

Despite having the potential to affect cooperation and support for law enforcement, community preferences for police training are generally unstudied. This paper seeks to understand (1) general community preferences for police training for responding to mental health crises, (2) where the public prioritizes this mental health crisis training relative to racial bias training, and (3) whether these preferences vary depending on respondent demographics and risk factors for police contact. Survey data from a general sample of Portland, Oregon residents (N = 259) shows public support for police training on responding to mental health crises, but the public as a whole is split over whether mental health, or racial bias training, should be prioritized as the best use of police training time. Logistic regression analyses demonstrate three main findings regarding the impact of respondent characteristics on preferences for police training: (1) black respondents appear concerned that, by drawing attention to mental health crises, police will be more limited in their responses to racial bias; (2) respondents facing the greatest, and those with the least, amount of risk in police/citizen encounters are most supportive of mental health crisis training; and (3) mental illness itself does not appear to affect support for police mental health crisis training. These differences in support for training need to be understood before law enforcement can cultivate community support for police officers and their training practices.     

The Popeye principle: selling child health in the first nutrition crisis

The cartoon character Popeye the Sailor was capable of superhuman feats of strength after eating a can of spinach. Popeye ate spinach because the association of spinach with strength was a product of the first national nutrition crisis in the United States: the 1920s fight against child malnutrition. Spanning the first three decades of the twentieth century, the malnutrition crisis arose from the confluence of many different events including the invention of nutrition science and new standards for height and weight; international food crises created by world war; the rise of consumerism, advertising, and new forms of mass media; and Progressive reformers' conviction that education was a key component of any solution. The history of the malnutrition crisis presented in this essay synthesizes disparate histories concerning advertising, public health, education, consumerism, philanthropy, and Progressive Era reform with original analysis of a major nutrition education program sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund in the 1920s. Because the character of Popeye came to embody one of the nutritional norms advocated in the 1920s, I refer to the influence of culturally constructed social norms on children's beliefs about health and nutrition as the Popeye Principle. The history of the malnutrition crisis demonstrates the importance of understanding the cultural and economic conditions surrounding childhood nutrition, the use and influence of numerical norms, and the mutually reinforcing influences on children's nutritional norms from their parents, peers, teachers, and culture.     

Youth Mental Health First-Aid: Juvenile Justice Staff Training to Assist Youth with Mental Health Concerns

Many youth in juvenile justice settings meet criteria for a mental health condition. Front line staff need to be able to recognize and respond to their needs, but training is often lacking. Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) is an 8-hour training for adults without mental health education to recognize and assist distressed youth. This study surveyed 1,279 [State blinded] DJS front-line staff trained in YMHFA. Of 338 returned surveys (26% response), 44% reported using YMHFA skills at work, 56% in preventing a crisis, 25% during crises. Respondents rated YMHFA as significantly improving their responsiveness to distressed young people.     

Legislating School Crisis Response: Good Policy or Just Good Politics?

Over the past decade, a growing number of schools have responded to students' safety and mental health needs following campus violence and other crises. More recently, policymakers have joined this trend, proposing legislation requiring schools to establish crisis response programs. This paper provides an overview of crisis response initiatives implemented by school districts following traumatic events, including school violence. It then examines recent state legislation and other policies, followed by a discussion of the advisability of such mandates, given the scant research and evaluation of school crisis response to date.     

Burundi’s rebel groups and the stigmatisation of wartime sexual violence

ABSTRACT

Despite assumptions about the ubiquity of wartime sexual violence, some armed actors work hard to generate negative views of rape and other abuses. This article qualitatively explores rebel group stigmatisation (and stigma) of wartime sexual violence and prohibitive normative practices. Regularly discussed with reference to the shaming of victims or survivors, stigmatisation is nonetheless utilised here as a concept for understanding how sexual coercion is “made” deviant and consequential for potential perpetrators. Two rebel groups from Burundi’s civil war (1994–2008), CNDD-FDD (National Council for the Defence of Democracy-Forces for the Defence of Democracy) and FNL (Palipehutu-Forces for National Liberation), are compared. The FNL stigmatised rape and sexual assault, and the nature and quality of its practices shaped negative social norms surrounding rape. The article’s main contribution is to demonstrate the need to deepen and widen the evidence base on the prevention of wartime sexual violence.     

The nature of police involvement in mental health transfers

During the course of their duties, police regularly have contact with mentally ill persons who are experiencing psychiatric crisis and require some form of mental health transfer. This study examined 2611 unique mental health transfers completed by police in the Australian state of Victoria over an eight-month period in 2009–2010. The overwhelming majority of mental health transfers performed by police during this period were the result of unplanned calls for assistance. Although police frequently requested assistance from other services, these were often not available. The study findings support a substantial body of anecdotal evidence from police citing lengthy involvement with people experiencing mentally illness, with the average mental health transfer consuming 2.5?h of police time. The frontline responses of police to people in psychiatric crisis need to be more formally acknowledged and creative solutions need to be sought with health and welfare services to better meet the needs of those who are falling between the cracks of community mental health care services.     

Reforming the Mental Health Act 1983: an approved social worker perspective

The government green paper, 'Reform of the Mental Health Act 1983', was published in November 1999, for consultation by end of March 2000. This article offers comment on the operation of the Mental Health Act 1983 and the proposals for change, from an approved social worker perspective. Under the Mental Health Act 1983, approved social workers undertake social assessments of mental health crises, deciding upon the need for compulsory admission and treatment. To the debate on legislative change they bring a detailed social perspective on the processes and outcomes of statutory mental health intervention. Approved social workers' main concerns relate to the social context of mental health need, the availability of social resources, civil liberties, protections for people subject to statutory mental health interventions and the effective regulation of practice and services. Current proposals include options that would significantly reduce approved social worker involvement in decisions about compulsory admission and treatment; the implications of this are discussed.     

Rethinking the Interface between Mental Illness,Criminal Justice and Academia

Punishment and treatment don’t occur within a vacuum. Responses in the justice system affect the mental health system, hospitals, clinics, and the welfare system. These systems are inextricably bound to each other. This paper, drawn from the 2009 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) Presidential Address, discusses issues regarding the criminalization of mental illness, fiscal crises, and three deinstitutionalization movements. Particular attention is given to the role of academia in reshaping the criminal justice system during the current fiscal crisis.     

有事法制与《日本国宪法》的危机——兼论有事七法案的通过对日本和平宪法的影响

2004年6月14日,日本国会通过了有事七法案。有事七法案的通过标志着日本有事法律体系的全面建立。然而,《日本国宪法》第9条明文规定日本放弃一切战争权利并不得保持任何战争力量。由此,有事法制便与《日本国宪法》产生了矛盾性。本文在系统介绍有事法制的基础上分析了有事七法案及有事法律体系的建立对于《日本国宪法》的影响。     

基于折衷模式下的大学生心理危机干预策略

大学生心理危机干预是高校心理健康教育工作的重点.从国内外大学生心理危机干预模式出发,指出现有的干预模式存在的不足,并针对当前高校学生心理危机的不同形式,以及心理危机干预工作中呈现的理论困惑和操作困难,基于折衷模式下的高校学生心理危机干预策略主要从如下几个方面着手:一是建立心理危机信息反馈系统;二是构建大学生心理危机预防体系;三是改善大学生的社会心理环境;四是引导和教育大学生进行自我心理调节;五是加大和优化心理危机干预队伍和机构建设;六是推进干预交流合作和网络化进程.     

Criminogenic Cyber-Capitalism: Paul Virilio, Simulation, and the Global Financial Crisis

This essay is a manifesto expounding the relevance of the critical theory of Paul Virilio to critical criminology. I interpret the global credit crisis as a criminogenic ‘event’, explicable in terms of Virilio’s theory of speed-politics. The trans-national space(s) of globalization are inherently criminogenic. ‘Power crime’ is the criminogenic ‘substance’ of global capitalism. Globalization—intensity, extensity, velocity, and impact—equates with cyber-capitalism, which ensures the operational primacy of simulation. Simulation, the fast moving manipulation of post-reality, causes the ‘disappearance of the real’, which underlines the epistemological crisis that attenuates global economic catastrophe. Simulation equates with the ‘logistics of perception’, which manifests itself through both pure war and speed-politics. Simulation and power crime merge on the level of the criminogenic manipulation of reality, resulting in the ‘accident’ of the global credit crisis. Power crime is the criminogenic medium through which the periodic crises of global capitalism will now occur.     

Is harmonization of legal rules an appropriate target? Lessons from the global financial crisis

This article deals critically with the call for a comprehensive harmonization of legal rules, against the background of the lessons from the recent financial crisis. Before coming to the topic of harmonization of legal rules, it first briefly deals with the question of why rules are necessary at all, and what the functions of rules are. Then it deals with the lessons from the recent financial crisis for the topic mentioned. The article conducts a kind of cost-benefit analysis of legal harmonization by looking at arguments in favor of and against uniform rules. It shows that not only the arguments in favor have increased after the recent financial crisis, but also the arguments against. It also shows that integration of global markets has not only increased the need for new uniform rules but also decreased the chances of their implementation; and that therefore today it is often better to improve the implementation of current rules instead of laying down new uniform rules.     

Do you think some veterans are receiving a “get out of jail free” card? Examining support for Veterans Treatment Court as a function of mental health and offense type

Journal of Experimental Criminology - To investigate if and how support for Veterans Treatment Court changed as a consequence of the veteran’s mental health label (PTSD, war injury, no mental...     

Then and Now: The Natural/Positivist Nexus at War: Auden's 'September 1, 1939'

This article returns to a little examined moment in the history of jurisprudence. A moment fleetingly considered, it has been ascribed, nevertheless, an iconic status in that history,² and it is meet to return to it now, at the war-shadowed dawn of the twenty-first century to consider how the juxtaposition of war with the positivist-Natural Law debate compares with the outbreak of an earlier war. The consideration of poetry alongside philosophy and jurisprudence permits reflection upon the history of ideas permeating many strands of thought and allows tentative conclusions to be drawn concerning implications for 'local' theory — especially 'Anglo-American' debate and the influence of discrete aspects of theory as they impinge one upon the other. The history also holds lessons for the very notion of theory itself — in the need to consider the 'tensile' properties of legal and political theory, any putative interactions between the formerly separate worlds of the analytic and normative, the 'natural' and 'positive'— particularly tested in the contingent event.     

Russia and Europe—Why We Need Each Other: On Overcoming the Civilizational Divide

Rational organization of state authority is one of the principal conditions for overcoming the total crisis—economic, financial, social, political, cultural, and interethnic—into which Russia has plunged. But for this we need time, we need to improve the country's social climate, and we need to broaden the basis of support for reforms. We must also rid ourselves of the Bolshevik ideology that has weighed heavily on Russia's shoulders for three-quarters of a century.     

Metropolitan Forensic Anthropology Team (MFAT) case studies in identification: 2. Identification of a Vietnamese trophy skull

A Vietnamese trophy skull, apparently a victim of the Vietnam war, was recently received for analysis in a New York State homicide case. The skull, which is well preserved except for the missing mandible and maxillary dentition, is compared to trophy skulls of Japanese military personnel, also brought back to the United States by American soldiers following wartime duty in Asia.     

正义、文明传承与后代人：“代际正义的可能与限度”

代际正义是一种新的社会正义形式。现在法学各个学科后代人权利、代际公平原则、可持续发展等问题的研究,迫切需要使用语义分析的方法对于代际正义的概念、特征和要素进行明确的界定,以使法学研究能够在一个清晰和确定的学术范畴基础上展开,避免由于对代际正义理解不同而造成理论上不必要的争议。     

Women’s Exposure to Psychological Abuse: Does That Experience Predict Mental Health Outcomes?

Women’s experience with psychological abuse was examined as a predictor of symptoms and clinical levels of depression, anxiety, and somatization, as well as suicidal ideation and life functioning. A national sample of 361 women reporting themselves to be in a problematic or conflictual relationship completed an online survey assessing psychological abuse, pre-existing risk factors, risk factors related to exposure of psychological abuse and mental health indicators. The results indicated that while psychological abuse does predict mental health outcomes, perceived negative changes in one’s traits, problematic relationship schemas, and response styles more strongly predict mental health outcomes than the reported abuse. Implications discussed include the importance of identifying women in psychologically abusive relationships who are at risk for mental health problems, prevention of development of mental health problems, and the need for mediation path analysis of the factors explored in this study.