The implementation of case formulation by probation officers: service user and carer views

Background: The recent UK Government strategy on high-risk offenders with personality disorders (PD) proposes improved identification of this group, assessment of their treatment needs through case formulation (CF) and the subsequent provision of treatment pathways. Little is known about service user and carer views on this strategy. Aims/Hypotheses: This study sought to identify the views of personality-disordered (PD) offenders and carers on the proposed role of Probation staff in CF. Methods: Three focus groups were carried out, two with service users and one with carers, with a total of 10 participants overall. Results: Five themes emerged: ‘power’, ‘conflicting roles’, ‘trust’, ‘building a relationship through consistency of care’ and ‘hope and possibility’. Conclusions/Practical implications: Offenders and carers were sceptical regarding the proposed role of Offender Manager (OMs) in CF and this could pose a potential barrier to the successful implementation of the strategy.     

When does the Gender Difference in Rumination Begin? Gender and Age Differences in the Use of Rumination by Adolescents

A cross-sectional non-clinical sample of 1,218 adolescents, aged 10–17 years, completed measures of stress, rumination, and depression to allow tests of the response style theory of S. Nolen-Hoeksema [J Res Adolesc 4:519–534, 1994] in adolescents, in particular whether increasing levels of stress and rumination in early adolescence are predictive of the onset of the gender difference in depression. Overall, females reported higher levels of stress, rumination, and depression than males. The onset of the gender differences in stress and depression occurred at age 13 years, and for rumination one year earlier at 12 years. Significantly, also from 13 years, rumination explained the gender difference in depression by showing that it significantly mediated the effect of gender on depression. Gender moderated the rumination to depression relationship; specifically the association was stronger for females than males. Developmental differences were noted in that rumination significantly mediated between stress and depression earlier in the age range for females than males. Results supported many of the predictions of Nolen-Hoeksema’s model of the emergence of a gender difference in adolescent depression.

The Prospective Impact of Family Functioning and Parenting Practices on Court-Involved Youth’s Substance Use and Delinquent Behavior

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Court-involved youth exhibit high rates of psychiatric symptoms, substance use, and delinquency, yet little is known about the contributing roles of caregiver and...     

Reply to Mac Giolla and Ly (2019): On the reporting of Bayes factors in deception research

Bayes factors provide a continuous measure of evidence for one hypothesis (e.g., the null, H0) relative to another (e.g., the alternative, H1). Warmelink et al. (2019, Legal Criminol Psychol, 24, 258) reported Bayes factors alongside p‐values to draw inferences about whether the order of expected versus unexpected questions influenced the amount of details interviewees provided during an interview. Mac Giolla & Ly (2019) provided several recommendations to improve the reporting of Bayesian analyses and used Warmelink et al. (2019) as a concrete example. These included (I) not to over‐rely on cut‐offs when interpreting Bayes factors; (II) to rely less on Bayes factors, and switch to ‘nominal support’; and (III) to report the posterior distribution. This paper elaborates on their recommendations and provides two further suggestions for improvement. First, we recommend deception researchers report Robustness Regions to demonstrate the sensitivity of their conclusions to the model of H1 used. Second, we demonstrate a method that deception researchers can use to estimate, a priori, the sample size likely to be required to provide conclusive evidence.     

Development of a Validity Scale for the Dissociative Experience Scale-Revised: Atypicality,Structure, and Inconsistency

Psychological Injury and Law - The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES), the most commonly used scale for assessing dissociation across settings, lacks a validity scale. In this study, six methods...     

Complex Trauma: Missed and Misdiagnosis in Forensic Evaluations

Psychological Injury and Law - Forensic evaluators frequently utilize diagnoses as a way to document the nature and severity of impairment and/or injury in civil and criminal cases despite...     

中西文化对话与新的精神秩序

中美分歧反映出更深层的结构失调,即全球将迎来一个与其他大型经济体奉行不同体制与价值观的最大经济体。中国的独特性挑战了它的自我身份认同,也挑战了世界的原有认知。但这一特性是与中国传统共同发展的,中国文化具有与西方同等的正统性。与西方热衷于建构普世秩序不同,中国文化更为灵活、包容。在后现代,东西方有可能"思想解放",展开富有成果的对话,并能够相互平衡。尽管很少有人精通两大知识传统,尤其欧美对中国和其他亚洲国家了解不够,但我们必须找到交流的方式,寻求新的精神秩序。     

The isolation of spermatozoa from sexual assault swabs using proteinase K

The most common examination in sexual offences is the identification of spermatozoa in aqueous extracts from swabs. Using Proteinase K with sodium dodecyl sulphate, it is possible to digest all the cellular material apart from the spermatozoa, resulting in a quick and effective method of their isolation. Spermatozoa were detected in 18 extracts using this treatment when the normal method had failed to reveal all but one of them.