The development and pilot testing of a family treatment court best practices assessment: The model standards implementation scale

In 2019, the family treatment court (FTC) best practice standards (the Standards) were published to clarify attributes of FTC programs associated with superior child, parent, and family outcomes. The Standards cover the breadth of FTC operations including program structure and leadership, substance use treatment and complementary services, and behavioral responses to participants. This study aimed to develop an instrument (the Model Standards Implementation Scale; “MSIS”) that stakeholders can use to assess implementation of the Standards by individual FTCs. The MSIS balances usability with scientific validity. Interrater reliability (IRR), internal consistency, and several types of validity were assessed. Results indicated moderate to strong IRR, high internal consistency, mixed known groups validity depending on Standard, and high convergent and divergent validity. Initial findings suggest good validity and usability of the MSIS for evaluating FTC Standards' implementation. Notably, the process of using the tool functioned to educate FTC team members on the Standards. Although implementation of the MSIS is a resource-intensive process, the opportunity to receive constructive feedback proved to be an effective incentive for initial and subsequent participation in the evaluation among FTCs. Future research is needed to examine predictive validity, including association between Standards' implementation and family outcomes in FTCs.     

High turnout in the Low Countries: Partisan effects of the abolition of compulsory voting in the Netherlands

We use a quasi-experimental framework to test the conventional wisdom that left-of-center parties benefit from higher turnout by analyzing the partisan effects of the abolition of compulsory voting in the Netherlands. Fixed effects, multilevel, and matching models of party family vote shares in the Netherlands before and after the reform–and in reference to a control group of Belgian party families–show consistent evidence the voting reform led to an increase in the vote share of Dutch social democratic parties and a decrease in the vote share won by minor and extreme parties. We find some evidence that Christian democratic and liberal parties also benefited from the voting reform, but argue this finding is not causally related to the reform itself.     

Justifications for Non-Consensual Medical Intervention: From Infectious Disease Control to Criminal Rehabilitation

A central tenet of medical ethics holds that it is permissible to perform a medical intervention on a competent individual only if that individual has given informed consent to the intervention. Yet it occasionally seems morally permissible to carry out non-consensual medical interventions on competent individuals for the purpose of infectious disease control (IDC). We describe two different moral frameworks that have been invoked in support of non-consensual IDC interventions and identify five desiderata that might be used to guide assessments of the moral permissibility of such interventions on either kind of fundamental justification. We then consider what these desiderata imply for the justifiability of carrying out non-consensual medical interventions that are designed to facilitate rehabilitation amongst serious criminal offenders. We argue that these desiderata suggest that a plausible case can be made in favor of such interventions.     

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.     

论我国当前群防群治工作

群防群治是我国社会治安综合治理的重要力量。建国后,国家群防群治工作从实践到理论进行了长期的探索。改苹开放后,群防群治工作有了新的特点和变化,面临新的机遇和挑战。当前全国各地群防群治队伍形形色色,但是基本可以归结为四类,这四类群防群治队伍的组织形式、管理模式、工作内容职责、经费保障有的有规范性文件依据,有的还没有规范性文件依据,实践中作法缺乏统一。当前推动群防群治工作需要做的工作很多,其中通过立法统一、完善群防群治各项工作,加强人防与物防和技防的结合,保障经费,明确工作职责是关键。     

Compulsory voting,turnout, and support for left-wing parties: The case of Australia

Does compulsory voting and the higher voter turnout that it produces increase support for left-wing parties? An influential and highly cited study provides strong evidence for such an effect in Australia. However, several quasi-experimental studies find little support for it in Europe. Given these conflicting findings, this study reanalyzes the crucial Australian case. It uses a unique, more fine-grained district-level dataset (N=4,219) and difference-in-differences designs to more directly test the assumed causal mechanism between compulsory voting and left-wing party support. Overall, it finds little evidence for the commonly assumed positive direct effect of turnout on Labor’s vote share. Further analyses identify an indirect effect of turnout – Labor’s decision to run candidates in more districts under compulsory voting – as an alternative mechanism and electoral system change and the Great Depression as potential confounding factors. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the political consequences of compulsory voting.     

Long-term Accompanying Service: Reflection on the Specialization in Social Work

Since 2006, China is undergoing a rapid growth in social work. In contrast with the rapid expansion of the scopes and fields for social work, the need for specialization in social work is creasing. Especially in mental health service in community, this demand is even higher. This article is intended to study a project on mental health in community called Assertive community treatment carried out in Shenzhen for 4 years, and finds that: a) the longstanding accompanying service is different from the short-term services; b) the longstanding accompanying service is another kind of specialized social work; c) the longstanding accompanying service is the best way for Chinese social workers to promote specialization of social work.     

Violence prevention in psychiatry: an umbrella review of interventions in general and forensic psychiatry

Relative risks of violence in psychiatric patients are high compared to the general population and existing evidence in non-psychiatric populations may not translate to reductions in violence in psychiatric populations. We searched 10 databases including Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL and Scopus, from inception until August 2015 for systematic reviews and meta-analyses of violence prevention interventions in psychiatry. Reviews were included if they used a hard outcome measure (i.e. police or hospital recorded violence, or reincarceration) and contained randomized or non-randomized controlled studies. Five reviews met our inclusion criteria (n = 8876 patients in total), of which four received a GRADE rating of ‘low’ or ‘very low’. Three randomized studies (n = 636) reported that therapeutic community interventions may reduce reincarceration in drug-using offenders with co-occurring mental illness (‘moderate’ GRADE rating). The lack of intervention research in violence prevention in general and forensic psychiatry suggests that interventions from non-psychiatric populations may need to be relied upon.     

对甘肃省农村以土地为核心的社会医疗保障的现实调查和反思

本文通过对甘肃省农村几地社会医疗保障现状及土地医疗保障能力的抽样调查与分析,揭示了西部农村土地在有效防范农民医疗风险方面能力有限,且有逐渐弱化趋势的问题。且就该问题从国家制度缺失、财政投入不足、医疗救助手段的匮乏等方面进行了深入反思。指出在当前甘肃农村,正确认识土地医疗保障能力,将对广大农户参加合作医疗产生积极的影响,有助于甘肃农村合作医疗制度的推广。同时,就如何建设适合甘肃农村的合作医疗制度的新机制,笔者从模式类型的选择、资金筹集与管理、非正式安排、地方立法安排等方面提出了对策。