Psychiatry, Psychology and Law articles from November 2006

Psychiatry, Psychology and Law archives from November 2006

Psychological status of former refugee detainees from the Woomera Detention Centre now living in the Australian community.
November 1, 2006... The impact of detention on psychological status, and quality of life was examined in a sample of 150 former refugee detainees from the Woomera Detention Centre now living in the Australian community. Detainees completed a psychological status...

The relationship between amphetamine use, crime and psychiatric disorder among prisoners in New South Wales.
November 1, 2006... The study used data from a survey of the mental health of prisoners to examine possible links between amphet amine use, psychiatric disorder and the alleged offences for which the inmate was received to NSW prisons. Ethical approval was...

Exclusion or concern: lawyers' and community members' perceptions of legal coercion, dangerousness and mental illness.(Australia)
November 1, 2006... Forty-six legal professionals and 44 members of the community responded to a questionnaire regarding their perception of the need for legal coercion for treatment for 3 hypothetical vignette characters described as having symptoms of...

Trying to improve young adults' person descriptions.(United Kingdom)
November 1, 2006... Witnesses' person description performance has repeatedly been found to be generally rather poor. This study examined the effects of using a person in young adult witnesses' visual field as a comparison (or 'standard') to assist their recall of...

Victoria's Serious Sex Offenders Monitoring Act 2005: implications for the accuracy of sex offender risk assessment.
November 1, 2006... Victoria's new Serious Sex Offenders Monitoring Act 2005 established a new regime whereby high-risk child-sex offenders can receive intensive, long-term supervision in the community post incarceration. Motivation for the new Act stemmed from...

Patients' satisfaction and self-rated improvement following coercive interventions.(Norway)
November 1, 2006... While the use of coercion, such as involuntary medication and physical restraints, is widespread in psychiatric treatment, little is known about the outcomes of the use of these interventions. Nineteen patients who ad been involuntarily...

Trust and power-distance: a psychological perspective on fairness in restorative justice conferences.(Australia)
November 1, 2006... Psychological research indicates that trust in the independent third party affects the way in which disputants rate the fairness of legal procedures. This article addresses procedural variation in restorative justice practices, in the context...

Timely intervention or trapping minnows? The potential for a range of net-widening effects in Australian Drug Diversion initiatives.
November 1, 2006... The range of drug diversion programs in Australia has increased markedly in the last decade. The question of whether these programs really do divert offenders from the criminal justice system or simply add levels of complexity and supervision...

Impulsive-aggression, antisocial behaviour and subclinical psychopathy: preliminary findings from an undergraduate female sample.(Australia)
November 1, 2006... Impulsive-aggression was investigated in a female university sample (N = 686). Four groups (impulsive-aggressive, n = 23; aggressive, n = 24; impulsive, n = 33; and control, n = 119) were selected on the basis of impulsivity scores and...

What is the role of intertextuality in media depictions of mental illness? Implications for forensic psychiatry.(United Kingdom, New Zealand)
November 1, 2006... This article offers a practical account of intertextuality and its impacts on media portrayals of violent crimes by persons living with a mental illness. We analysed interrelationships across reports, on the same page, of violent crimes by two...

Police officers' and legal professionals' perceptions regarding how children are, and should be, questioned about repeated abuse.(Australia)
November 1, 2006... This study explored the perceptions of police officers and legal professionals (i.e., prosecutors, defence lawyers and a judge) about (a) what particularisation is, (b) the type of information that is required for particularisation to occur,...

Mock-suspects' decisions to confess: the influence of eyewitness statements and identifications.(Australia)
November 1, 2006... An experiment was conducted to investigate ways of increasing the likelihood of an offender confessing. Ninety participants were asked to commit a mock-crime that involved them stealing a wallet. Later the mock-offenders were presented with...

Limitation of actions for psychiatric injuries in intentional tort cases.(Australia, Victoria)
November 1, 2006... Limitation periods for the institution of actions for personal injury prescribe important impediments for the institution of actions by victims of both intentional and non-intentional torts. In Stingel v Clark (2006) 80 ALJR 1339; [2006] HCA 37...

Law and the Brain.(Book review)
November 1, 2006... S. Zeki and O. Goodenough (Eds.) Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, 271pp incl index, 29.95 [pounds sterling] The editors commence Law and the Brain by observing that it was not many years ago that neurobiology, devoted largely to...