The German notariat and the European challenge¹

This article does not have an abstract     

Confidently Wrong: Police Endorsement of Psycho-Legal Misconceptions

Public beliefs about psychological issues relevant to the legal system have been demonstrated to often be misconceived, but the endorsement of such beliefs in law enforcement samples is largely unknown. This study was the first to compare psycho-legal beliefs between law enforcement officers and the general public in the UK. Participants were presented a 50-item questionnaire measuring five psycho-legal topics; police procedures, courts, tough on crime, mental illness, and memory and cognition. Despite direct involvement and relevant experience, law enforcement officers endorsed just as many empirically contradictory beliefs as those who were not law enforcement officers. Further, law enforcement officers were more confident in their responses. This research has implications for identifying areas of limited knowledge within police samples that can be targeted by police education.     

Removing the barriers; adolescent coping and attitudes towards mental health services in custodial settings – Can we improve services?

Young people in custodial care are known to have high levels of mental health and emotional problems, and recent policy and service developments have sought to improve their access to services. However, little is known about how they cope or about what would increase their uptake of services (when such services are available). This study aimed to develop, validate and use a standardised measure to examine the coping, help-seeking and attitudes of a larger cohort of young people in custody. There was a marked reluctance to seek help for any but the most serious of problems, but there were also indicators of what would make services more acceptable to this population, with implications for both commissioning and delivering services. In particular, greater involvement of parents and carers, offering a wider range of interventions and offering them more flexibly, and challenging stigma within the secure environment may increase uptake of services.     

A comparison of actuarial methods for identifying repetitively violent patients with mental Illnesses

This is a progress report on the development of practical methods for the actuarial prediction of violence. The literature indicates that actuarial prediction is more accurate than clinical prediction, but in practice actuarial methods seem to be used rarely. Here we address two obstacles to the clinical use of actuarial prediction methods. First, clinicians may be averse to actuarial methods that require calculations. To remedy this, we developed a regression tree screen that presents actuarial information about violence in a series of yes/no questions. Second, using actuarial methods to identify the small minority of violent patients in a general psychiatric population may be too costly. To remedy this, we developed a method to prescreen patients for intensive evaluation using an inexpensive assessment. We evaluated regression trees and two-stage screening by comparing their accuracies against conventional actuarial methods. The results showed that actuarial predictions based on regression trees and two-stage screens were as accurate as regression-based methods in identifying repetitively violent patients. These easier-to-use methods may therefore be useful techniques for actuarial predictions.