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Forensic Psychiatry (forensic + psychiatry)
Selected AbstractsForensic psychiatry, ethics and protective sentencing: what are the limits of psychiatric participation in the criminal justice process?ACTA PSYCHIATRICA SCANDINAVICA, Issue 399 2000S. N. Verdun-Jones As clinicians, psychiatrists are unequivocally dedicated to relieving the suffering of those who are afflicted with mental disorders. However, the public and those individuals, who are assessed, find it difficult to draw a distinction between forensic psychiatrists acting in a clinical role and the very same professionals acting in an evaluative role, on behalf of the state. This paper examines the ethical issues raised by psychiatric involvement in the sentencing process. It rejects the view that a forensic psychiatrist, who undertakes an evaluation for the state, is to be considered as an advocate of justice who is not bound by conventional ethical duties to the individual whom he or she assesses. It contends that the forensic psychiatrist has an important role to play in presenting evidence that may result in the mitigation of the sentence that may be imposed on a person who is mentally disordered. The paper will focus on these issues in the particular context of the situation in England and Wales, Canada and the United States. [source] A future for forensic psychiatry , if not faith, then what?CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 1 2008Pamela J. TaylorArticle first published online: 30 JAN 200 First page of article [source] The Forensic Inpatient Observation Scale (FIOS): development, reliability and validityCRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 3 2001Irma G.H. Timmerman Introduction Re-offending, as a measure of success in forensic psychiatry, gives no information about other behaviours that may have changed. The development of the Forensic Inpatient Observation Scale (FIOS), an observation instrument to assess the non-offending functioning of forensic patients, is described. Study 1 In the first study the development of the initial item pool of the FIOS is described. This resulted in an instrument consisting of 78 items and seven scales. The internal reliability of the scales ranged from 0.78 to 0.91. The inter-rater reliability of the scales varied from 0.50 to 0.85 and the test,retest reliability over a period of three weeks was high for most scales, ranging from 0.74 to 0.89. Study 2 In the second study the FIOS was developed further in another sample of forensic patients. This time exploratory factor analysis with Varimax rotation and post hoc reliability analysis were applied to determine the factor structure among the items. This resulted in an item pool of 35 items, among which six factors could be distinguished that closely resemble the factor structure of the FIOS in study one: (1) self-care, (2) social behaviour, (3) oppositional behaviour, (4) insight offence/ problems, (5) verbal skills and (6) distress. Most items have high loadings on the factor they are assigned; 29 items have a loading of 0.60 or higher. The internal consistency of the scales ranges from 0.73 to 0.91 and the scales appear to be measuring independent constructs. Twenty-five out of the 35 items have an inter-rater correspondence of 90% or higher and 30 out of 35 items have an inter-rater correspondence of 87.5% or higher. The inter-rater reliability on the scale level, however, was somewhat less satisfying with correlations ranging from 0.50 to 0.69. Discussion It is argued that training the observers on a more regular basis will improve the inter-rater reliability. There is some evidence for the convergent validity of the FIOS. The FIOS has some advantages over existing inpatient scales in that it is developed specifically for forensic patients, it does not particularly focus on axis 1 symptoms but includes oppositional behaviour and attitudes to offending. Copyright © 2001 Whurr Publishers Ltd. [source] Community forensic psychiatry: restoring some sanity to forensic psychiatric rehabilitationACTA PSYCHIATRICA SCANDINAVICA, Issue 2002J. Skipworth Objective:, To review clinical and legal paradigms of community forensic mental health care, with specific focus on New Zealand, and to develop a clinically based set of guiding principles for service development in this area. Method:, The general principles of rehabilitating mentally disordered offenders, and assertive community care programmes were reviewed and applied to the law and policy in a New Zealand forensic mental health setting. Results: There is a need to develop comprehensive community treatment programmes for mentally disordered offenders. The limited available research supports assertive community treatment models, with specialist forensic input. Ten clinically based principles of care provision important to forensic mental health assertive community treatment were developed. Conclusion:, Deinstitutionalization in forensic psychiatry lags behind the rest of psychiatry, but can only occur with well-supported systems in place to assess and manage risk in the community setting. The development of community-based forensic rehabilitation services in conjunction with general mental health is indicated. [source] Forensic Risk Assessment in Intellectual Disabilities: The Evidence Base and Current Practice in One English RegionJOURNAL OF APPLIED RESEARCH IN INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES, Issue 4 2000Stephen Turner The growing interest in forensic risk assessment in intellectual disability services reflects the perception that deinstitutionalization has exposed more people to a greater risk of offending. However, ,risk' and the related idea of ,dangerousness' are problematic concepts because of connotations of dichotomous definition, stability and predictability. Assessment instruments in mainstream forensic psychiatry often combine actuarial and clinical data, and increasingly stress the dynamic nature of risk as well as the importance of situational and accidental triggers. Despite this increasing sophistication of research in mainstream forensic psychiatry, the ability to predict future offending behaviour remains very limited. Furthermore, actuarial predictors developed in studies of psychiatric or prison populations may not be valid for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Offending behaviour among people with intellectual disabilities is also hard to circumscribe because it often does not invoke full legal process or even reporting to the police. In order to discover how such problems were reflected in practice, a survey of providers in the North-west Region of England was undertaken. Seventy out of 106 providers identified as possibly relevant to this inquiry responded to a short postal questionnaire. Twenty-nine (42%) respondents , mainly in the statutory sector , reported operating a risk assessment policy relating to offending. The number of risk assessments completed in the previous year varied from none to ,several hundred'. Providers reported three main kinds of problems: (1) resources or service configuration; (2) interagency or interdisciplinary cooperation or coordination; and (3) issues relating to the effectiveness, design and content of assessment. [source] Governing the Captives: Forensic Psychiatric Nursing in CorrectionsPERSPECTIVES IN PSYCHIATRIC CARE, Issue 1 2005Dave Holmes RN TOPIC/PROBLEM:,Since 1978, the federal inmates of Canada serving time have had access to a full range of psychiatric care within the carceral system. Five psychiatric units are part of the Federal Correctional Services. Nursing practice in forensic psychiatry opens up new horizons in nursing. This complex professional nursing practice involves the coupling of two contradictory socio-professional mandates: to punish and to provide care. METHOD:,The purpose of this article is to present the results of a grounded theory doctoral study realized in a multi-level security psychiatric ward of the Canadian Federal Penitentiary System. The theoretical work of the late French philosopher, Michel Foucault, and those of sociologist, Erving Goffman, are used to illuminate the qualitative data that emerged from the author's fieldwork. FINDINGS:,A Foucauldian perspective allows us to understand the way forensic psychiatric nursing is involved in the governance of mentally ill criminals through a vast array of power techniques (sovereign, disciplinary, and pastoral) which posited nurses as "subjects of power". These nurses are also "objects of power" in that nursing practice is constrained by formal and informal regulations of the penitentiary context. CONCLUSION:,As an object of "governmental technologies", the nursing staff becomes the body onto which a process of conforming to the customs of the correctional milieu is dictated and inscribed. The results of this qualitative research, from a nursing perspective, are the first of their kind to be reported in Canada since the creation of the Regional Psychiatric Correctional Units in 1978. [source] | ||||||||||