A survey of the provision of family therapy in medium secure units in Wales and England

A cross-sectional survey design was utilised to capture a snapshot of the provision of family therapy in medium secure units (MSUs) across Wales and England during 2013. Semi-structured interviews were administered via telephone interview with 39 MSUs. Information pertaining to the main research question was also gathered from a further 10 via email follow-up. Over a third of responding MSUs in Wales and England were offering family therapy, with team members being appropriately qualified and receiving regular supervision. Systemic psychotherapy was the most prevalent approach to working with families and it is suggested here that systemic psychotherapy fits well with the complexity and uniqueness of working with families in secure contexts.     

CHANS-Law: preventing the next pandemic through the integration of social and environmental law

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - Zoonotic viruses have sacrificed hundreds of millions of people throughout human history. There are currently 1.7 million...     

Mentoring in Relation to Violent Extremism: A Study of Role,Purpose, and Outcomes

This article presents the key findings of an evaluation of a mentoring scheme being implemented for individuals deemed vulnerable to violent extremism in the West Midlands region in the United Kingdom. The key findings of this study are, firstly, that mentoring around violent extremism carries distinctive features, and can be distinguished from mentoring in other areas of criminal behavior or in drug/alcohol use. Secondly, there is ongoing debate around what the purposes of mentoring are; crystallizing around the key question of whether mentoring in the area of violent extremism is about changing beliefs or changing behavior, or both; therefore, how to measure success? The article examines the different theoretical fields in relation to de-radicalization, disengagement, desistance, and debiasing in order to situate the article's findings in a broader body of work. This article also links individual mentoring to the notion of community, for it is important to consider the individual who is being mentored in relation to the broader set of communities that they belong to or associate with. Here, it is stressed that in the United Kingdom there are significant tensions between approaches that emphasize community cohesion, and those that emphasze liberal freedoms associated with liberal democracy, particularly in relation to Al Qaeda–linked extremism.     

‘Stalking’ – Seeking the victim's perspective

Abstract

The law has experienced great difficulty in defining ‘stalking’ and framing legislation to deal with the problem. There has been little research as to how the public in general and potential victims in particular view this phenomenon. In an effort to explore this issue, 80 women aged 18 to 55 years were invited to classify which of a range of intrusive behaviours were exemplars of stalking. A cluster analysis of the classification data showed a clear distinction between those which participants felt to be stalking and non-stalking related acts. Further, a number of distinct sub-categories of perceived stalking behaviours were suggested by the analysis. Participants were also asked to indicate whether they had first hood experience of any of these behaviours and to describe their worst personal experience of ‘stalking’. Analysis of this data suggested that instances of what our respondents perceived as ‘stalking’ was widespread in the sample and that some of its more serious manifestations would, if reported, have led to criminal charges. The difficulties of framing legislation, however, to define all the acts which our respondents saw as ‘stalking’ remain.     

The recovery of pollen evidence from documents and its forensic implications

Three experiments were undertaken to establish the potential for forensic palynological analysis in cases of suspected document fraud. The first study tested 6 different types of paper and 9 different types of ink (n = 54) and it was established that the best retainer of particulates (in this case a proxy was used in the form of UV powder) was medium biro ink and Wove and Connoisseur paper. It was found that for the different paper types 42–52% of the particulates collected were found in the ink and thus both the paper and the ink are potentially valuable sources of trace evidence in a forensic investigation. The second study sought to address the differences in the spatial distribution of particulates on documents when writing took place before or after the paper was treated with UV particulates. Ninety-six observations were made for each piece of paper tested and it was found that when the writing took place after the particulates were applied to the paper; more particulates were retained on the paper in contrast to when the writing took place before the particulate treatment. The spatial distribution of particulates was also affected, with particulates being retained in the folds of the paper when the writing took place before particulate treatment in contrast to a more erratic pattern that emerged due to the pressure of the hand of the writer when the writing took place after the particulate treatment. The third study utilised lily (Lilium) pollen grains and the findings broadly concurred with the second study. The main difference identified was when the writing took place before the particulates were applied; when UV powder was used the particulates were retained in the folds of the paper whereas this pattern was not seen to the same degree when pollen grains were used due to their ‘stickier’ nature. Envelopes and the pen nibs were also found to be rich sources of pollen grains after the experiments were undertaken.These studies have implications for the application of forensic palynology in cases of suspected document fraud. Pollen grains may well be present, and their analysis has the potential to reveal not only the timing of the generation of the document, but the spatial trends revealed indicate that it may well be possible to establish the sequence of significant events for forensic reconstruction. As such forensic palynology is demonstrated to have great potential in aiding forensic investigations, and is as yet an under-utilised form of trace evidence.