Can epidemiological studies assist in the evaluation of community treatment orders? — The experience of Western Australia and Nova Scotia

Epidemiological studies using administrative databases have several advantages over other methodologies in studying the effectiveness of compulsory community treatment such as community treatment orders (CTOs). We compared patients placed on CTOs in Western Australia with controls drawn from both within the jurisdiction and from another without this measure (Nova Scotia). Although in different countries, the mental health services in both jurisdictions share common characteristics. Notably, we were able to control for forensic history in our comparison within Western Australia. We analysed predictors of admission and number of bed-days using multiple, logistic or Cox regression as appropriate. Of the 274 subjects placed on a CTO, we were able to find controls for up to 96% (n = 265). CTO placement was not associated with reduced admissions or mean bed-days, although there was a threshold effect with a reduced risk of inpatient stays exceeding 100 days. Outpatient contacts were significantly greater for the CTO group. However, we do not know whether the intensity of treatment, or its compulsory nature, effected outcome.     

Changing security cultures in Europe and Southeast Asia: Implications for inter-regionalism

Recent development in Southeast Asia demonstrates a slowly but steadily changing security culture from, first, an informal, consensus-based and often hidden way of managing security to a more open and explicit discourse and, second, from a statist realist definition of security as hard or military security to a broader, liberal understanding that covers the whole spectrum of human, economic and environmental security. This security culture in the making also touches upon formerly tabooed issues such as sovereignty and humanitarian intervention. The paper argues that the new approach has removed obstacles in relations between Europe and East Asia and contributed to the emergence of security as a cornerstone of the co-operation agenda since 1998. At the same time, however, a rapid translation of the inter-regional discourse on security into a working programme or even specific policies is hindered by the prevalence of diverging views on the nature, scope and degree of institutionalisation in Europe-East Asia relations.     

Poetry in Review: Robert Lowell

Book reviewed in this article:
Robert Lowell (edited by Frank Bidart and David Gewanter), Collected Poems