Severe personality disorder,treatment engagement and the Legal Aid,Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012: what you need to know

Empirical research has demonstrated a link between legal coercion and treatment engagement following conviction among those with severe personality disorder. Legal coercive pressures were often applied by the Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection (IPP), until it was replaced by the Extended Determinate Sentence by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. In this paper, it is proposed that use of the new determinate sentence will lessen motivation for treatment engagement. One effect of treatment refusal may be greater reliance by the Secretary of State for Justice on his jurisdiction to transfer prisoners due for release to secure hospital transfers under the Mental Health Act 1983. Not only will this risk posturing undermine the principal aim of the Offender Personality Disorder Implementation Pathway to improve treatment engagement among the target group, it will also have negative implications for medical practitioners working in secure forensic hospitals. To demonstrate what is at stake, the paper briefly recapitulates empirical findings familiar to readers of the journal, before drawing on original unpublished data.     

Managing rural landscapes in the context of a changing climate

Global competition for natural resources is intense and the supply of those resources is increasingly more constrained by climate variability and change. Governments and international development agencies have the dual responsibility to meet the socio-economic needs of the poorest and most vulnerable people while preserving and enhancing their natural capital. These responsibilities often are at odds with each other and different stakeholder groups have prioritised one over the other. This paper suggests that the landscape approach provides a solution for stakeholders to achieve climate change mitigation, adaptation, and poverty reduction goals, though not without some trade-offs.     

Maggot development during morgue storage and its effect on estimating the post-mortem interval

When insect evidence is obtained during autopsy, forensic entomologists make decisions regarding the effects of low-temperature (-1 degrees C to 4 degrees C) storage of the body and associated insects when estimating the post-mortem interval (PMI). To determine the effects of storage in a morgue cooler on the temperature of maggot masses, temperatures inside and outside of body bags containing a human cadaver and porcine cadavers (seven replicates) were measured during storage. Temperatures remained significantly higher (p<0.05) inside of the body bags relative to the cooler, and remained at levels sufficient for maggot feeding and development. If the assumption that no insect development takes place during preautopsy refrigeration is made, potential error rates in PMI estimation of 8.6-12.8% occur. The potential for blow fly larvae to undergo significant development while being stored in the morgue is a possibility that forensic entomologists should consider during an investigation involving samples collected from autopsy. Case and experimental evidence also demonstrate that substantial tissue loss can occur from maggot feeding during morgue storage.     

“Undoing” (or Symbolic Reversal) at Homicide Crime Scenes

A closed case file review of a nonrandom national sample of 975 homicides disclosed 11 cases (1.13%) of undoing, wherein offenders engaged in crime scene behavior that has been considered an attempt to symbolically reverse the murder. The frequency of the various methods of undoing involved the use of blankets to cover the victim's body (55%), positioning the body (55%), use of a bed or couch (42%), washing the body (36%), using pillows (36%), as well as removing clothing and adding other types of adornments (27%). Ten of the 11 offenders were male, and one was female; all 12 victims were female. Ten of the 12 victims were family members or relationship intimates. These findings are consistent with prior reports which concluded that the motivation for undoing behavior is an attempt to compensate for guilt or remorse for having committed the homicide.     

Female student athletes’ perceptions of acceptability and the occurrence of sexual-related behaviour by their coaches in India

The current study assessed the perceptions of acceptable sexual behaviour of coaches and the occurrence of sexual harassment among female student in India. A sample of 180 Indian female student-athletes at intercollegiate and inter-university levels with male coaches participated in this study. A questionnaire on sport-specific Touch and Behaviour versus Unwanted Intimacy from coaches (Vanden Auweele et al., 2008), consisting of 41 items on a 5-point rating scale was used. The participants were asked to indicate the acceptability of specific coaching behaviour as well as the occurrence of the behaviour represented in each item. The acceptability of the behaviour was determined by means and standard deviations, while the occurrence was determined by frequencies. Factor analysis was performed to determine the structure of the coaches’ behaviour and athletes’ acceptability thereof, which yielded four factors. Cronbach’s alpha was used to determine the internal consistency of the extracted items on each factor. Two factors, namely, unwanted sexual behaviour and inappropriate verbal and physical sexual behaviour, were regarded by athletes as very serious and unacceptable coach behaviour, while a third factor represented context-dependent suspicious behaviour (a grey area in which athletes differ in their opinion) and was perceived to be serious and unacceptable. A fourth factor represented acceptable behaviour. The occurrence of very serious and unacceptable behaviour was reported by 31% of the female athletes.     

Arson for revenge: The role of environmental situation,age, sex,and race

Research on arson and its many motivations continues to be absent from the criminological literature. Although some authorities cite revenge or retaliation as the primary motive for arson in certain areas of our central cities, revenge arson has not been systematically addressed. The research presented here explores whether demographic variables (age, race, and sex) along with the environmental character of the offender's place of residence adequately determine the likelihood that offenders will commit arson for revenge. The analysis not only indicates that important age and racial differences affect the likelihood that individuals will use fire as a weapon of retaliation but also reveals that the environmental situation or character of the offender's place of residence appears to condition the relationship of both age and race with retaliation.