Therapeutic engagement in medium-secure care: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of service users’ experiences

Service users (SUs) detained in forensic hospitals are usually required to engage in psychological therapies aimed at reducing mental distress and/or for preventing further offending. Poor therapeutic engagement (TE) can lead to adverse clinical outcomes and reoffending, at a cost to the individual, staff, the service provider, and the public. To understand what factors influence TE from a SUs’ perspective, the experiences of 10 male residents of a medium-secure hospital were explored. Using a service-user informed design, interpretative phenomenological analysis of interview data was completed. Four superordinate themes emerged: different worlds; what the individual brings; what the therapy entails; and control. Consideration of how these factors may be of use to professionals working in secure care settings is discussed in relation to existing theory and research.     

A New U.S.-Colombian Relationship: Transnational Crime and U.S. National Security

To fight transnational crime, the United States needs to strengthen its cooperation with Colombia. This initiative, according to the authors, will not only be cost-effective for the United States, it will also signal U.S. willingness to work “by, with and through” other states, and may make possible an expanded regional framework to act against the criminal cartels.     

Book reviews

The Politics of Central Europe by Attila Ágh. London: Sage Publications Ltd, 1998. Pp.xii + 244. £15.99 pb ISBN 0 7619 5032 X.

Legitimacy and the European Union by David Beetham and Christopher Lord. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd, 1998. Pp.viii + 144. £11.99 pb ISBN 0 582 30489 X.

Party Discipline and Parliamentary Government edited by Shaun Bowler, David M. Farrell and Richard S. Katz. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1999. Pp.ix + 304. $59.95 hb ISBN 0 8142 0796 0; $22.50 pb ISBN 0 8142 5000 9.

Conscience and Parliament edited by Philip Cowley. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1998. Pp.204 £35 hb ISBN 0 7146 4836 1; £16.50 pb ISBN 0 7146 4388 2.

The House of Lords: Its Parliamentary and Judicial Roles edited by Brice Dickson and Paul Carmichael. Oxford: Hart Publishing Ltd, 1999. Pp.258. £30 hb ISBN 1 84113 020 6.

Namibia's Post‐Apartheid Regional Institutions: The Founding Years by Joshua Bernard Forrest. Woodbridge, Suffolk: University of Rochester Press, 1999. Pp.xviii + 408. £40 hb ISBN 1 58046 028 3.

Bakom Riksdagens Fasad by Magnus Hagevi. Göteburg: Akademiförlaget, Corona, 1998. Pp.314 pb ISBN 91 24 16844 0.

Feminist Perspectives on Public Law edited by Susan Millns and Noel Whitty. London: Cavendish Publishing Limited, 1999. Pp.xviii + 306. £19.95 pb ISBN 1 85941 480 X.

Senates: Bicameralism in the Contemporary World edited by Samuel C. Patterson and Anthony Mughan. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1999. Pp.xii + 360. $52 hb ISBN 0 8142 0810 X; $19.95 pb 0 8142 5010 6.

Deliberative Democracy in Australia: The Changing Place of Parliament by John Uhr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp.xvi + 265. £45 hb ISBN 0 521 62458 4; £15.95 pb ISBN 0 521 62465 7.

Pursuit of Justices: Presidential Politics and the Selection of Supreme Court Nominees by David Alistair Yalof. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Pp.x + 296. £19.50 hb ISBN 0 226 94545 6.     

Mind the Gap. The Theory and Practice of State Rescaling: Institutional Morphology and the ‘New’ City-regionalism

The repeated reterritorialisation of economic development policy has resulted in a congested institutional environment characterised by a confused, and confusing, nested spatial hierarchy of interventions. Nevertheless, advocacy for perpetual institutional manoeuvring has proceeded largely unchecked leaving important questions unanswered regarding both the desirability of adding to/modifying the institutional landscape of cities and also the viability of such policies in light of existing attachments to long-established administrative geographies. In calling for further research, this paper conducts a preliminary investigation of the mutation of sub-city Urban Regeneration Companies (URCs) into city-regional City Development Companies (CDCs) and suggests the expansive critical realist epistemology as a potentially worthwhile methodological starting-point.     

Congressional Testimony of General Lance W. Lord,USAF, Commander,Air Force Space Command before the Senate Armed Services Committee Strategic Forces Subcommittee United States Senate Washington D.C 16 March 2005

ABSTRACT

The following is the prepared testimony of General Lance W. Lord, USAF, Commander of U.S. Air Force Space Command before the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate's Armed Services Committee on 16 March 2005. The prepared testimony can also be found at: http://armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/2005/March/Lord%2003-16-05.pdf     

Democracy and the European Union: Matching means to standards

In justifying recent European Union Treaty changes, member-state governments have claimed that publics are doubly represented in the EU: through their elected governments and through the European Parliament. This review evaluates ‘dual representation’ as a means of delivering democratic standards. It concludes that present institutional arrangements contain some means of aligning policy outcomes with citizen preferences but they do not match up so well to ‘input’ or procedural conditions for public control with political equality. One troubling aspect of this is that there are good normative grounds for holding ‘input’ standards to be prior to ‘output’ ones. Another is that difficulties of public control are, on Union matters, more acute in relationships between representatives and voters than in those between representatives and other power holders.     

The delegation of authority to crown corporations

Abstract. This paper attempts to outline how to improve the performance of the crown corporations of the Government of Canada. It surveys the activities of 52 crown corporations to show that those operating enterprises are concentrated in transport, communications, finance and trade while most of the others provide economic or social support services. Crown corporations are then shown to be a quite different form of organization from commercial companies. The criteria for their establishment are next distinguished: crown corporations do not undertake political or judicial functions and perform at least one of the functions of managing capital assets, lending, making transfer payments and research. After their establishment, corporations operating enterprises tend to be given limited powers to make economic decisions and are often required to make uneconomic expenditures while the major authority delegated to most of the non-enterprises is one to spend. The managements of enterprises should therefore have full authority to make economic decisions, except when they borrow, and be relieved of uneconomic activities provided that they achieve standards of performance determined in advance. The managements of other crown corporations should continue to have authority to spend, subject to their demonstrating that their corporations produce services which a department cannot supply either readily or at lower cost. Sommaire. Cet exposé est un essai en vue de déterminer les moyens d'améliorer le rendement des sociétés de la couronne du Gouvernement du Canada. L'auteur étudie les activités de 52 sociétés de la couronne pour démontrer que celles qui exploitent des enterprises se cantonnent surtout dans le domaine des transports, des communications, de la finance et du commerce, tandis que la plupart des autres fournissent des services d'appoint économiques et sociaux. Il souligne ensuite la différence entre les sociétés de la Couronne et les entreprises commerciales. Puis il dégage les critères régissant leur fondation: les sociétés de la couronne n'assument aucune fonction politique ou judiciaire et remplissent au moins une des quatre fonctions de gérance des capitaux, prêts, paiements par transfert et recherche. Après leur établissement, les sociétés exploitant des entreprises accèdent souvent à une autorité bornée sur les décisions économiques et se voient souvent obligées à faire des dépenses désraisonnables du point de vue économique, alors que le pouvoir principal conféré aux sociétes sans but commercial est justement de dépenser. La direction des entreprises devrait done être autorisée à prendre des décisions économiques, sauf dans les cas d'emprunts, et être dégagée de toute activité non rentable à condition d'atteindre des normes de rendement fixées d'avance. La direction des autres sociétés de la Couronne devrait conserver le pouvoir de faire des déboursés, à condition d'être en mesure de démontrer que leur société fournit des services qu'un ministère serait incapable de donner sans difficulté ou à meilleur marché.