Psychiatry, Psychology and Law articles from November 2007

Psychiatry, Psychology and Law archives from November 2007

Special medical procedures, sterilisation of minors and the role of the family court.(Australia)
November 1, 2007... Generally parents have the power to consent to medical treatment of their child where the child is incapable of giving consent. (1) This 'parental power to consent to medical treatment on behalf of a child diminishes gradually as the child's...

Anti-stalking legislation in practice: are we meeting community needs?
November 1, 2007... Anti-stalking legislation introduced across Australia and New Zealand during the 1990s reflected the numerous international constructions of stalking, and led to different legislative definitions in each jurisdiction. In the years since the...

Female-perpetrated child sex abuse: definitional and categorisational analysis.(Australia)
November 1, 2007... A recent series of court cases in Australia in which teachers have been convicted of sexual crimes against children and adolescents has brought to attention the fact that females are capable of, and do commit, such crimes. However, the nature...

Risk assessment of recidivism of violent and sexual female offenders.(New Zealand)
November 1, 2007... Although female offenders are small in numbers compared to their male counterparts, over the last few years greater international attention has been given to gender-specific aspects of female offending and to criminogenic needs and...

Personal and offending characteristics of child sexual offenders who have been sexually abused.(Australia)
November 1, 2007... A study of 324 sexual offenders against children referred to an assessment and treatment service in South Australia is reported in this article. Sexual offenders who had experienced sexual abuse in childhood were compared with offenders who had...

Providing mental health services and psychiatric care to immigration detainees: what tort law requires.(Australia)
November 1, 2007... There is increasing evidence that the provision of mental health services is inadequate for immigration detainees. In S v Secretary, Department of Immigration end Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs [2005] FCA 549, Justice Paul Finn held that...

Forensic provisions of the Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld).
November 1, 2007... In 2002, the most modern and arguably most innovative mental health legislation in Australia--the Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld)--came into effect in Queensland. The Queensland jurisdiction is unique in grafting procedural provisions and...

Cultural group differences in social disadvantage, offence characteristics, and experience of childhood trauma and psychopathology in incarcerated juvenile offenders in NSW, Australia: implications for service delivery.
November 1, 2007... The current study investigates the relationships among ethnicity and culture and offending in an incarcerated sample of 242 young offenders in New South Wales, Australia. Findings indicated greater similarities between young offenders from...

The probity of profiling: opinions of Australian lawyers on the utility of criminal profiling in court.
November 1, 2007... Criminal profiling and its investigative utility for policing have been examined at some length despite there being only an embryonic body of robust empirical research. The use of profiling knowledge in assisting the curial process in...

Judgments of financial abilities of severely mentally ill individuals: a comparison of self-report and an objective measure.
November 1, 2007... When clinicians are asked to assess the financial capacity of those with severe mental illnesses, they often use a patient self-report. However, agreement between self-reported financial abilities and actual performance has not been...

Fitness for trial in Queensland.
November 1, 2007... A large body of case law has developed upon the common law concept of 'fitness for trial' and most Australian jurisdictions have detailed legislative provisions that purport to define 'fitness (or unfitness) for trial' and set out procedures to...

Fitness: what is the role of psychometric assessment?
November 1, 2007... The notion of fitness to plead is an essential part of the criminal responsibility component of the western judicial system. It is therefore important that clinicians undertaking fitness assessments use state of the art tools. Appropriate...

Sentencing offenders with impaired mental functioning: R. v Verdins, Buckley and Vo.
November 1, 2007... The Victorian Court of Appeal decision in R v Verdins, Buckley and Vo [2007] VSCA 102; (2007) 169 A Crim R 581 provides both a synthesis of the evolving law in Australia on the relevance to sentencing of impaired mental functioning and a...

Writing Reports for Court: A Practical Guide for Psychologists Working in Forensic Contexts.(Book review)
November 1, 2007... Writing Reports for Court: A Practical Guide for Psychologists Working in Forensic Contexts Jack White, Andrew Day and Louisa Hackett Australian Academic Press, Brisbane, 2007, 198pp, $A46.20 The authors of Writing Reports for the...