The impact of forced forensic psychiatric confinement on composition and structure in the personal networks of personality-disordered forensic psychiatric patients

This study explored to what extent the composition and structure of personal networks of personality-disordered forensic psychiatric patients changed before and after forced confinement in a forensic psychiatric centre. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with 36 patients and selected members of their networks were examined. During forensic psychiatric treatment, patients reported a decrease in network size, in the number of high-risk network members, and in the number of social ties between these high-risk network members. Personal relationships were of shorter duration, with lower levels of contact frequency and reciprocity. No changes were observed in the patients’ companionship, practical and emotional support networks. During forensic psychiatric treatment, patients reported some new relationships, especially with persons outside the forensic psychiatric centre. Information on compositional and structural personal network factors over time helps forensic mental health professionals to properly assess and manage the important dynamic social network conditions associated with recidivism.     

Scaling Up or Scaling Back? The Pitfalls and Possibilities of Leveraging Federal Interventions for Abolition

Antiprison activists have often turned the federal court system to reduce the violence of the carceral state. However, such reform attempts have too often had the unintended consequence of fortifying the penal system. In this article, I interrogate one such intervention—a federal court order that encompassed the Louisiana Department of Corrections from 1975 to 1998. I argue that while the lawsuit was declared a success in reforming Angola, the federal court’s intervention buttressed and legitimated the growth of the Louisiana penal system. This paradox was produced through the limits of liberal reform ideology that failed to recognize the structural violence of incarceration. Rather, the federal courts located violence with prisoners instead of the punitive power of the state and racial capitalism. This framework not only led to an increase in punitive practices within Angola, it came to underpin penal expansion as the primary solution to cyclical overcrowding.     

The role of community in facilitating service utilization

Guided by an integrated theory of parent participation, this study examines the role community characteristics play in influencing a parent's decision to use voluntary child abuse prevention programs. Multiple regression techniques were used to determine if different community characteristics, such as neighborhood distress and the community's ratio of caregivers to those in need of care, predict service utilization levels in a widely available home visiting program. Our findings suggest that certain community characteristics are significant predictors of the extent to which families utilize voluntary family supports over and above the proportion of variance explained by personal characteristics and program experiences. Contrary to our initial assumptions, however, new parents living in the most disorganized communities received more home visits than program participants living in more organized communities. The article concludes with recommendations on how community capacity building might be used to improve participant retention.     

Assessing the best interests of the child in cases of cross-border surrogacy: inconsistency in the Strasbourg approach?

This article examines the approach of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to assessing the best interests of the child in three recent cases of cross-border surrogacy, namely Mennesson v France, Labassee v France and Paradiso and Campanelli v Italy. It is argued that these cases reveal inconsistency in the ECtHR’s assessment of the best interests of the child. In Mennesson and Labassee, the ECtHR found that the national authorities’ refusal to legally recognise the relationships between the children and the intended parents amounted to a violation of Article 8 ECHR, whereas no violation was found in Paradiso. A notable distinguishing feature of Paradiso was that there was no genetic relationship between the child and the intended parents, and it is this point that seemingly led the Court to assess the best interests of that child differently to the others.     

Pregnancy-associated deaths: a 15-year retrospective study and overall review of maternal pathophysiology

Pregnancy-related death is defined by the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) as the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the cause of death. In the year 2000, a collaborative effort involving World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and UNFPA estimated 660 maternal deaths in the United States. This averages 11 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births reported. Many pregnancy-associated deaths are not easily identified as such since the presence of a recent or current pregnancy may not be listed on the death certificate. Thus, the WHO estimates that in the United States, the maternal mortality is approximately 17/100,000 pregnancies. This is significantly higher than the goal set by the US Department of Health and Human Services in Healthy People 2010, which sets the target for maternal mortality at less than 3.3/100,000 live births. The most common causes of maternal death vary somewhat from region to region in the United States. They include pulmonary thromboembolism, amniotic fluid embolism, primary postpartum uterine hemorrhage, infection, and complications of hypertension including preeclampsia and eclampsia. Pulmonary disease, complications of anesthesia, and cardiomyopathy also are significant contributors to maternal mortality in some populations. The death of a pregnant or recently pregnant individual poses a wide scope of challenges to the forensic pathologist and investigator. The pathologist must have a broad knowledge of the physiologic and biochemical changes that occur during pregnancy, as well as the clinical and pathological manifestation of these changes. Conditions that may be "benign" in the nonpregnant individual may be lethal in the puerperal period. In addition, it should be kept in mind that deaths during pregnancy may be due to unnatural causes. Accident, homicide, and suicide must be ruled out in each case. The authors reviewed all forensic cases referred for autopsy to the Forensic Section of the Medical University of South Carolina from January 1989 through December 2003. All decedents listed as pregnant or postpartum were analyzed as to maternal age, race, past medical history, previous pregnancies and outcome, prenatal care, gestational age, fetal or neonatal outcome, location of delivery, placental findings, maternal autopsy findings, toxicology, cause of death, manner of death, and fetal or neonatal autopsy findings. The authors present this retrospective study to better determine the factors leading to maternal demise and discuss the autopsy/ancillary techniques useful in determining the cause of death in this challenging area.     

Psychotic versus non-psychotic firesetters: similarities and differences in characteristics

Firesetters with psychotic disorders constitute a distinct and important offender group. However, little is known about how psychotic firesetters differ from non-psychotic firesetters. More knowledge is required in order to treat this particular population effectively. Psychotic (n?=?30) and non-psychotic (n?=?94) firesetters of both sexes referred for pre-trial forensic mental health assessment in the Netherlands were compared on socio-demographic, pathological, judicial and event-related characteristics using binary and multivariate statistical tests. Results showed that psychotic firesetters were older, single and unemployed. They had a more extensive history of mental health problems, associated drug use and impaired self-reliance. Opposed to non-psychotic offenders, physical abuse in childhood and alcohol abuse were less prevalent. They had a more extensive history of prior convictions, committed the arsons more often alone and were less often intoxicated. Treatment implications are discussed as focusing treatment on these differences may contribute to treatment efficacy and prevention of recidivism.     

Solidarity forever? ABC,ALBA and South–South Cooperation in Haiti

The growing influence of the global South in international affairs has prompted a passionate discussion about the role of South–South cooperation (SSC). SSC is sometimes uncritically portrayed as a uniform phenomenon that presents a superior alternative to North–South Cooperation (NSC). To problematise and deepen our knowledge about SSC, this article examines the intriguing case of Haiti, which has seen a wealth of SSC cooperation since the international intervention in 2004. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the study compares the approaches of two distinct Southern groupings working in Haiti: Argentina, Brazil and Chile (the so-called ABC countries) and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) led by Venezuela. We argue that ABC and ALBA display marked differences and that, while their approaches have distinct strengths and weaknesses, they do not necessarily represent a fundamental improvement over NSC.