Disturbed sleep as a risk factor for aggression in prisoners with a psychotic illness: a brief report

The objective of the present study is to examine whether a relationship exists between disturbed sleep and aggression in 19 male prisoners with a psychotic illness, incarcerated in the Penitentiary Psychiatric Centre in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The sleep–wake rhythm was indirectly assessed by means of actigraphy. The results show that nocturnal restlessness was a significant predictor of aggression/agitation with a large effect size (R^2?=?.639, adjusted R²?=?.536). It was concluded that future research should focus on nocturnal restlessness as a possible cause of aggression in this population.     

Preventing crime in cooperation with the mental health care profession

Although major mental disorders do not have a central position in many criminological theories, there seems to be an evident relationship between these disorders and criminal behavior. In daily practice police officers and mental health care workers work jointly to prevent nuisance and crime and to keep the city livable. Examining the situations where the criminal justice system and mental health institutes are jointly involved to prevent crime, some pitfalls emerge that seem to threaten successful cooperation. There appear to be unrealistic expectations of the possibility to reduce the risk of reoffending by means of treatment and of the possibility to predict which offender poses a risk to society. Another complexity is the fact that both parties work from different backgrounds and pursue different goals. The way society and the criminal justice system deal with persons who are assumed to be a risk to the community because of a mental disorder demands a further investigation from a criminological perspective.     

Violence against care workers in psychiatry: is prosecution justified?

The number of (severe) violent incidents against staff caused by psychiatric inpatients is high. Victims often do not report these incidents to the police, because of various reasons. But if they do report these incidents, the judicial authorities are often reluctant in prosecuting and convicting these patients. The central question in this article is ‘in which cases is it appropriate to prosecute assaultive psychiatric patients?’In order to identify the influential factors in the decision in respectively reporting, prosecuting and convicting psychiatric patients who assault staff, a literature review has been performed. On the basis of this literature it is advised to report and investigate a case when the incident resulted in severe injury, the incident is a sexual offence, or when a patient repetitively causes violent incidents. Moreover, it appears that, although large amount of studies has been published on violence in psychiatry, the prosecution of violent psychiatric patients has hardly received any attention in the international literature. Empirical studies on this subject are suggested, in order to develop a uniform policy, which is embraced by all parties involved.     

Congress and the political expansion of the U.S. districts courts

Expanding the number of U.S. district judgeships is often justifiedas a response to expanding caseloads. Increasing judgeshipsduring unified government, however, allows Congress and thePresident to engage in political (patronage and ideological)control of the federal district courts. This paper examinesempirically the relative importance of caseload pressure andpolitical motives for Congress to expand the number of federaldistrict judgeships. We demonstrate that politics dominatesthe timing of judgeship expansion in the U.S. District Courts.We also show that both politics and caseload affect the actualsize of those timed expansions. In particular, we find thatbefore 1970, Congress seemed to have strong political motivationsfor the size of an expansion. After 1970, Congress became muchmore attentive to caseload considerations.     

Violence against mental health care professionals: prevalence,nature and consequences

In this study, the prevalence, nature and consequences of violence against mental health care professionals are examined. Dutch mental health professionals working in clinical psychiatry were approached to fill in an online questionnaire on their personal experiences with physical violent incidents. It appeared that 67% of the 1534 respondents were victim of at least one physical violent incident in the past five years. In total, the 1534 respondents reported they had encountered 2648 physical violent incidents. In some cases, the consequences were very severe, not only for the victim but also for the employer. Some groups of professionals appear to have an increased risk of being victimized. The findings show that the violence that mental health professionals encounter is a substantial and severe problem that no longer should be disregarded.