A systematic review of effective therapeutic interventions and management strategies for challenging behaviour in women in forensic mental health settings

Women in secure forensic mental health care require therapy and care that is responsive to their specific needs. Despite the policy recognition that women require a distinct service, evidence based practice is not available for this population. This review was undertaken in response to a clinical need within a medium secure unit in Glasgow that was experiencing high levels of challenging behaviour, in a female ward. The review aimed to identify effective strategies or interventions for the management of challenging behaviour in women in secure services and, therefore, improve practice and patient care. A synthesis of the findings from the 11 identified studies revealed variability in the approaches used to support women in forensic services, including: behavioural programmes; organisational change with a focus on staff training and support; medication; ECT and mechanical restraint. The challenging behaviours assessed included self-harm; physical and verbal aggression; suicide attempts and arson/fire setting. The majority of articles suggested some improvement in aspects of challenging behaviour, however this was limited by the lack of control groups and small sample sizes. Further investigation is required to find out whether interventions identified in this review can sustain a reduction in challenging behaviours in the long-term.     

Mapping the fragmentation of the international forest regime complex: institutional elements,conflicts and synergies

In the field of global environmental governance, a plethora of international regimes have emerged over the past decades. In some issue areas, multiple regimes aim to govern the issue, sometimes reinforcing, oftentimes conflicting with each other. Consequently, international regime complexes are an empirical phenomenon, which are inherently characterized by specific degrees of fragmentation. For any given issue area, one of the key questions is whether the institutional fragmentation encountered in such regime complexes is synergistic or conflictive in nature. Scrutinizing this question poses methodological challenges of how to delineate a regime complex and how to assess its fragmentation. Drawing on the highly fragmented case of the international forest regime complex, this paper aims to map its institutional fragmentation and to analyse the degrees to which it is conflictive or synergistic. For this we conceptualize the notion of institutional elements and develop a novel method for mapping regime complexes based on their core institutional elements. We then employ tools from the sub-discipline of policy analysis on the complex’s institutional elements for analysing in detail, which of the elements are mutually synergistic and conflictive with other elements of the regime complex. Our results indicate that synergistic relations mostly exist among rather vague elements, often built around sustainability as a core principle. On the contrary, conflictive relations prevail as soon as the elements are designed in more concrete and substantial ways. We conclude that the forest regime complex displays only degree of seemingly synergistic fragmentation through a number of non-decisions and the use of “sustainability” as an empty formula. De facto, conflictive fragmentation prevails among elements of concrete subject matter. This raises questions on whether vast parts of regime complexes merely serve symbolic functions, while conflicts on substance are being camouflaged.

     

Birds Behaving Badly: The Regulation of Seagulls and the Construction of Public Space

This article is about the socio‐legal construction of one of the least‐loved birds in the United Kingdom: the ‘seagull'. In particular, it is about how the gull has been brought within the realm of the ‘anti‐social', in a context in which urban‐nesting gulls (of which there are many in the United Kingdom) are cast as causing a great deal of public nuisance, ranging from noise, aggression, and mess, to attacks, injuries, and stress. The article examines the measures adopted by local authorities to regulate the gull population – and to regulate people, in the name of regulating gulls – and shows how a construction of the ‘seagull’ underpins and justifies this regulatory framework. It argues that the story of the regulation of seagulls in the United Kingdom is also a story about the construction of public space, to the point that the measures adopted here challenge the very idea of public space.     

Creating a State‐Academic Partnership to Advance a Forensic Teaching Service: Benefits and Barriers

In Washington State, like many states, there is a shortage of forensically trained mental health clinicians to work with criminal justice‐involved individuals. At the direction of the state legislature, a collaborative project was undertaken by the University of Washington, the state Department of Social and Health Services, and a state psychiatric hospital to develop a proposal for a jointly sponsored forensic teaching service. The authors reviewed the literature, surveyed and interviewed forensic psychiatry and psychology training directors, and conducted site visits of selected training programs that offer multidisciplinary training or have affiliations with state hospitals. The authors conducted focus groups of additional stakeholders, including clinicians and patients in forensic settings, to better understand the needs in Washington. The authors report on several common benefits and barriers to establishing forensic teaching services. Other states and forensic programs may find this article useful in identifying common considerations for forensic mental health teaching services.     

The Dynamics of Enduring Property Relationships in Land

This article proposes a new way of looking at property relationships that will enrich our understanding of how they operate. It focuses on property rights in land which are consensual in origin, although this approach could usefully be applied both to non‐consensual property relationships and to other property types. Recognising both the temporal and spatial dimensions of land, the dynamics approach reflects the fact that most property relationships are lived relationships, affected by changing patterns and understandings of spatial use, relationship needs, economic realities, opportunities, technical innovations, and so on. Although evolving responsively to accommodate changing uses and new rights‐holders, these relationships are nevertheless sustained and enduring. The dynamics lens acknowledges the diverse range of legal, regulatory, social and commercial norms that shape property relations. Our approach also explores how far the enduring, yet dynamic, nature of property relations is taken into account by a range of decision‐makers.     

A Comparison of Defendants with Mental Illness Represented by Public Defenders and Private Attorneys: an Analysis of Court-Ordered Pretrial Psychiatric Evaluations

This study compared the characteristics and court-ordered evaluation questions and responses among 4,430 defendants to determine if differences existed between those represented by public defenders and private attorneys when receiving trial competency or responsibility psychiatric evaluations from a state department of mental health. Defendants represented by public defenders were more likely to be younger, to have less education, to have psychotic disorders, to have a history of inpatient psychiatric treatment, to live in urban or rural counties, and to be jailed at the time of the evaluation. In addition, defendants represented by public defenders were less likely to have a request for a criminal responsibility evaluation and more likely to be evaluated as having a mental illness, to be incompetent to stand trial, and to need hospitalization pending trial. Consideration of whether defendants with public defenders receiving less requests for responsibility evaluations was indicative of a therapeutic jurisprudence approach is discussed. Implications for research on types of legal representation of defendants with mental illness are discussed.     

Perceptually contemporaneous offenses: Gender and fear of crime among African-American university students

There is consensus in the fear of crime literature that women are more afraid of crime than men. Research has explored perceptually contemporaneous offenses to explain the differences in male and female fear, and to explore the possibility that different crimes shape their respective fears. Victimization studies consistently find that African-American citizens are at a higher risk of crime and fear of crime. Using a 2013 sample of a Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the south, the present study will 1) report gender differences in fear of crime, 2) test whether gender differences in fear of crime are explained by perceptually contemporaneous offenses, and 3) assess whether or not men and women share the same master offenses.     

Characterizing the Performance of Pipe Bombs

Pipe bombs of steel or PVC fragment in reproducible patterns when similarly configured. The power of the explosion correlates with number, mass, and size of the fragments recovered, where a large number of small, low‐mass fragments indicate a high‐power event and vice versa. In discussing performance, describing pipe fragmentation pattern by fragment weight distribution mapping (FWDM) or fragment surface area distribution mapping (FSADM) was useful. When fillers detonated, detonation velocities of ~4.4 mm/μs were measured. In such cases, side walls of the pipe were thrown first; the average fragment velocity was ~1000 km/s. In deflagrations, the end cap was first thrown; fragment velocities were only ~240 km/s. Blast overpressures varied; at 10 feet, 2 × 12 inch steel pipes containing ~550 g of detonable mixture produced overpressures of 5–6 psi; similar nondetonating pipes produced less than 2 psi. Maximum fragment throw distances were 250–300 m, with an average of ~100 m.     

The Role of Postmortem Computed Tomography in the Evaluation of Strangulation Deaths

We explored the value of postmortem computed tomography (PMCT) to augment autopsy in evaluating strangulation fatalities. A literature search identified 16 studies describing autopsy findings in 576 deaths and two studies describing autopsy and PMCT findings in six deaths. Similar cases were identified from our institution, yielding 130 deaths with autopsy findings and 14 deaths with both autopsy and PMCT findings. The presence of laryngohyoid fracture and soft tissue hemorrhage was compared from autopsy and autopsy+PMCT cases. The detection rates of fractures in autopsy and autopsy+PMCT cases were not significantly different. PMCT identified all fractures observed at autopsy and five fractures not identified. While PMCT may not detect soft tissue injuries in decomposed remains or subtle internal hemorrhages in neck injury, it is equally able to detect bony injuries as autopsy and might surpass autopsy in detecting subtle fractures. We conclude PMCT is useful to supplement autopsy in strangulation cases.     

Job Stress,Job Involvement,Job Satisfaction,and Organizational Commitment and Their Associations with Job Burnout Among Indian Police Officers: a Research Note

Job burnout can negatively impact individual officers, the organization that employs the burned out officers, citizens with whom these officers directly interact, and the community more broadly. The vast majority of the empirical research on burnout has been based on Western police officers. The present study extends our understanding of the associations that job stress, job involvement, job satisfaction, affective commitment, and continuance commitment have with the three dimensions of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of accomplishment) among Indian police officers. Ordinary least square (OLS) regression analysis was used to examine survey data from 827 police officers in the Sonipat and Rohtak districts of the Indian state of Haryana using a systematic random sample. The findings indicate that job involvement and job satisfaction were associated with lower levels of all three dimensions of burnout. Job stress was associated with emotional and reduced accomplishment burnout. High affective commitment was associated with lower levels of a reduced sense of personal accomplishment, while continuance commitment was associated with higher levels of emotional and depersonalization burnout. The results suggest that job stress, job involvement, job satisfaction, affective commitment, and continuance commitment have effects on burnout among Indian officers, as has been found among Western officers. As such, police scholars and administrators should focus on reducing job stress and continuance commitment and increasing job involvement, job satisfaction, and affective commitment among officers.