Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health : CBMH

BACKGROUND: While there is empirical evidence to support associations between psychopathy scale ratings and offending or deviant behaviours, suggested as support for a unified theory of crime, evidence to date has been mainly from countries with high economic ratings and Western philosophies. In countries with a wide range of cultural groups and languages and a complex history of colonisation and apartheid, such scale ratings and correlations may differ. AIMS: To explore the psychometric properties of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory-Short Version (YPI-S) and its applicability and relationship to deviant and actual or potential criminal behaviour among young adults in South Africa...

BACKGROUND: In-prison violence by detainees is a problem worldwide, but despite evidence of a much higher prevalence of a range of psychiatric disorders than in the general population, little is known about psychopathology among violent detainees. AIMS: Our aim was to explore the psychopathology and mental healthcare history of Dutch detainees who were transferred to the highly restrictive facility for uncontrollably violent detainees following severe in-prison violence...

BACKGROUND: Although forensic psychiatry is recognised as a full medical speciality in the UK, training in it is not routinely offered to medical students. With growth both in forensic psychiatry and availability of medical school places, it is a good time to explore the nature and quality of experience already available. AIMS: 1. To map the literature against the guideline for reporting evidence-based practice educational interventions and teaching checklist. 2...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Sexual fantasies and memories are aetiological considerations in the perpetration of sexual violence, but fantasy-memory-behaviour relationships may be influenced by various factors, including sexual fantasy and memory phenomenology, that are the properties of mental imagery. AIMS: To investigate differences in sexual fantasy phenomenology and sexual memory intensity in men who report a history of harmful sexual behaviour compared to those who do not...

BACKGROUND: There are numerous scales for screening cognitive performance and thus identification of any potential deficits, but in spite of the vulnerability of the prison population to such problems, there has been no adequate validation of screening tools specifically for use with prisoners or others in the criminal justice system. AIM: To validate the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) for use with prisoners. METHODS: 100 adult prisoners in one Portuguese prison were randomly invited by clinicians to take part in this study...

BACKGROUND: Growing evidence of mental disorders among people going through the criminal justice system suggests the potential benefit of courts adding a Mental Health Treatment Requirement (MHTR) when sentencing an offender to a Community Order (sentence) in England and Wales. Although available since 2003, MHTRs have not been widely used, and there is little evidence on outcomes. AIM: To conduct the first large-scale evaluation of mental health outcomes of people with an MHTR as part of their community sentence across multiple sites in England and Wales...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Screening for mental disorders among prisoners is crucial for early detection and intervention of psychopathology and substance use disorders. In Italy, only a minority of prisons have implemented a structured screening process, and there is not yet a standard approach to this worldwide. AIMS: First, to describe a systematic psychological screening for early identification of mental disorder, including drug use disorders, and suicide risk among men on reception into one Italian prison, designed to inform management and, secondly, to describe mental health outcomes among those prisoners accepted into the in-reach mental health service as a result of the assessment...

BACKGROUND: Transfer to a psychiatric hospital of prisoners who need inpatient treatment for a mental disorder is an important part of prison healthcare in the UK. It is an essential factor in ensuring the principle of equivalence in the treatment of prisoners. In England and Wales, delays in transferring unwell prisoners to hospital were identified by the 2009 Bradley Report. There has been no subsequent systematic review of progress in so doing nor a corresponding appraisal of transfer arrangements in other parts of the world...

BACKGROUND: Extant literature has shown that there is a higher prevalence of mental disorders among prisoners compared to the general population. These findings have, however, mostly been from high-income and westernised cultures. In Ghana, little is known about the extent of psychiatric disorders among prisoners, as is consistent with the dearth of scholarly work in low and middle-income countries. AIMS: Our aim was to determine the prevalence of common mental disorders among sentenced prisoners in the second largest prison in Ghana...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: There has been a substantial change in the law on the provision of secure health services for offender-patients in Italy, a country currently with the lowest general psychiatry bed availability per head of the population in Europe, raising questions about possible differences in offender-patient admissions between European countries. AIMS: In this multicentre case-control study, our aim was to compare the socio-demographic, clinical and criminological characteristics of a sample of Italian forensic in-patients with schizophrenia or similar psychosis with patients in a similar diagnostic range in specialist in-patient services elsewhere in Europe...

BACKGROUND: Alcohol dependence is a risk factor for experiencing victimisation, but little is known about how peer and behavioural mechanisms may explain this relationship. AIMS: To test deviant peer association and/or heavy-episodic drinking frequency as mediators between alcohol dependence and risk for being victimised. METHODS: The Pathways to Desistance data were analysed. Generalised structural equation modelling was used to determine whether either or both of the hypothesised pathways significantly mediated the relationship between alcohol dependence and victimisation...

BACKGROUND: The Breaking the Cycle (BTC) Demonstration Project is an intensive drug intervention programme designed to break the cycle of drug use and offending in which many substance-abusing offenders find themselves trapped, by providing them with alternatives to drug use and crime. AIMS: To determine whether an increase in social competencies mediates between any relationship involving enrolment in the Breaking the Cycle Demonstration Project and subsequent drug use or self-reported offending...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Men who commit violence against an intimate partner differ in their motives. Classifying the proactivity of men's partner violence may reveal important differences that could be treatment targets. AIMS: To examine the differences between proactive and reactive partner violence based on coded descriptions of past violent events. METHOD: Community cohabiting couples reporting intimate partner violence were recruited via advertisements...

BACKGROUND: There are not many longitudinal studies examining people experiencing homelessness and interacting with the criminal justice system over time. AIMS: To describe the type of criminal offences committed, court outcomes, identify probable predictors of reoffending, and estimate the criminal justice costs in a cohort of homeless hostel clinic attendees. METHOD: A retrospective cohort study of 1646 people attending a homeless clinic who had had contact with the criminal justice system (CJS) in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, using linked clinic, criminal offence, health and mortality data from 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2021...

BACKGROUND: Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is known to be a risk factor for antisocial and delinquent behaviour, but there is still a lack of information on how features of ADHD relate to offending behaviour among adults not already defined by their offending. AIMS: Our aim was to add to knowledge about relationships between ADHD and antisocial behaviour among adults in the general population by answering the following questions: (A) Does the level of self-reported ADHD features relate to criminal and non-criminal antisocial behaviour? (B) To what extent are self-ratings of ADHD features independent of socio-demographic features previously identified as predictors of antisocial behaviour? METHODS: A sample of adults was originally recruited to study public response to the COVID-19 outbreak through an online panel to be representative of the Israeli population...