Tinna Dögg Sigurdardóttir, Adrian West and Gisli Hannes Gudjonsson
This study aims to examine the scope and contribution of Forensic Clinical Psychology (FCP) advice from the National Crime Agency (NCA) to criminal investigations in the UK to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the scope and contribution of Forensic Clinical Psychology (FCP) advice from the National Crime Agency (NCA) to criminal investigations in the UK to address the gap in current knowledge and research.
Design/methodology/approach
The 36 FCP reports reviewed were written between 2017 and 2021. They were analysed using Toulmin’s (1958) application of pertinent arguments to the evaluation process. The potential utility of the reports was analysed in terms of the advice provided.
Findings
Most of the reports involved murder and equivocal death. The reports focused primarily on understanding the offender’s psychopathology, actions, motivation and risk to self and others using a practitioner model of case study methodology. Out of the 539 claims, grounds were provided for 99% of the claims, 91% had designated modality, 62% of the claims were potentially verifiable and 57% of the claims were supported by a warrant and/or backing. Most of the reports provided either moderate or high insight into the offence/offender (92%) and potential for new leads (64%).
Practical implications
The advice provided relied heavily on extensive forensic clinical and investigative experience of offenders, guided by theory and research and was often performed under considerable time pressure. Flexibility, impartiality, rigour and resilience are essential prerequisites for this type of work.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to systematically evaluate forensic clinical psychology reports from the NCA. It shows the pragmatic, dynamic and varied nature of FCP contributions to investigations and its potential utility.
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Matthew Jones, Dara Mojtahedi, Nadia Wager and Adrian West
Reports from 2016 to 2017 suggest that approximately 870 cases of non-familial child abduction (NFA) are recorded in England and Wales per year. Yet, empirical knowledge of the…
Abstract
Purpose
Reports from 2016 to 2017 suggest that approximately 870 cases of non-familial child abduction (NFA) are recorded in England and Wales per year. Yet, empirical knowledge of the victims, offenders and offence characteristics is limited in comparison to other forms of child victimisation. Furthermore, much of the available knowledge is constrained by a lack of clarity around the differences between acquaintance and stranger abductors. This systematic literature review aims to develop a comprehensive overview of acquaintance and stranger child abductions, focussing on the similarities and differences in offending behaviours.
Design/methodology/approach
Research databases (PsycArticles, Google Scholar, Science Direct, PsycINFO, Criminal Justice Abstracts, MEDLINE and ERIC) and the Grey Literature (ETHOS and EBSCO) were screened for peer-reviewed research published between 1995 and 2021. Sixteen articles met the inclusion criteria and were critically appraised using a modified version of the Joanna Briggs Institute Checklist for Case Reports.
Findings
Six key areas within NFA offences and their characteristics were identified as offering potential for differentiating acquaintance and stranger abductors: victim–offender relationship, number of victims and offenders, motives, modus operandi, victim injury, sexual assault and mechanism of death (in fatal cases). The results of this review are discussed with consideration given to investigative implications, limitations and directions for future study.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to systematically review the current NFA literature, from which pragmatic recommendations for practice and future academic enquiry are drawn.
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This research attempts to explore in‐patient perspectives on the long‐stay, medium‐secure hospital wards in which they are based. Semi‐structured interviews focused on the care…
Abstract
This research attempts to explore in‐patient perspectives on the long‐stay, medium‐secure hospital wards in which they are based. Semi‐structured interviews focused on the care provided by the hospital in comparison with the high‐secure hospitals from which the participants had been transferred. Questions focused on the participants' perceptions of recovery and the scope for it at both sites.The data suggests that participants identify increased scope for recovery at the long‐stay, medium‐secure facility, and that this is promoted by increased flexibility due to less emphasis on security. Important factors discussed by participants were increased access to a range of activities, graded access into the community, the different atmosphere in the hospital sites and the differences in potential for developing trusting relationships with staff and fellow in‐patients.
This critical review considers the limitations and advantages of the clinical, actuarial and structured clinical judgement approaches as they are applied to the assessment of risk…
Abstract
This critical review considers the limitations and advantages of the clinical, actuarial and structured clinical judgement approaches as they are applied to the assessment of risk in general and sex‐offenders in particular. It concludes by endorsing an inclusive approach, acknowledging that a central ethic of clinical practice is that it should be based on a current knowledge of the research literature (Singer, cited in Douglas et al. 1999).
We encourage you to always indicate the source of your information on orders which you place as a result of an advertisement or other mention in RSR. The extra effort involved…
Abstract
We encourage you to always indicate the source of your information on orders which you place as a result of an advertisement or other mention in RSR. The extra effort involved helps everyone concerned; certainly it helps the journal itself, which receives more in the way of financial support if it proves a good place to advertise, but it also helps each publisher or other organization because, by knowing where to most effectively place advertising, they thereby need to do less of it. In the end, however, libraries and librarians are the ultimate beneficiaries, insofar as periodicals are allowed to preserve lower subscription rates because of the amount of paid advertising they receive, and insofar as publishers and others are enabled to charge less for their products by knowing how and where to advertise them most economically. Recognition of your responsibility in this chain of communication is vitally important, for it directly affects the cost of goods and services which you pay for.
Many mobile devices today are equipped with diversified sensors that enable the acquisition of rich user context (e.g. GPS location, phone activity) for application utilization…
Abstract
Purpose
Many mobile devices today are equipped with diversified sensors that enable the acquisition of rich user context (e.g. GPS location, phone activity) for application utilization. With the growing usage of mobile devices in daily life, the problem of conveniently and promptly searching a piece of content that a user has viewed on his/her device before becomes more and more crucial. This paper aims to propose a context‐based query processing framework called UCQP that supports unstructured queries for content search in a user's access history.
Design/methodology/approach
Beyond the keywords related to the content properties, a context query in the framework is specified with freeform phrases that describe high‐level mobile contexts of the user at a previous time when the user viewed the searched content.
Findings
Experimental results on a prototype system of the framework illustrate its good accuracy and small response time.
Originality/value
To tolerate the incompleteness and inaccuracy in user query texts caused by fading human memory, the authors develop several semantic query parsers that are tailored for different types of contexts using natural language processing and information retrieval techniques. The authors further propose a similarity model to rank the multiple result contents of a query by comparing context entities specified in the query and historical context values associated with each result.
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Jeffrey Braithwaite, Kristiana Ludlow, Kate Churruca, Wendy James, Jessica Herkes, Elise McPherson, Louise A. Ellis and Janet C. Long
Much work about health reform and systems improvement in healthcare looks at shortcomings and universal problems facing health systems, but rarely are accomplishments dissected…
Abstract
Purpose
Much work about health reform and systems improvement in healthcare looks at shortcomings and universal problems facing health systems, but rarely are accomplishments dissected and analyzed internationally. The purpose of this paper is to address this knowledge gap by examining the lessons learned from health system reform and improvement efforts in 60 countries.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 60 low-, middle- and high-income countries provided a case study of successful health reform, which was gathered into a compendium as a recently published book. Here, the extensive source material was re-examined through inductive content analysis to derive broad themes of systems change internationally.
Findings
Nine themes were identified: improving policy, coverage and governance; enhancing the quality of care; keeping patients safe; regulating standards and accreditation; organizing care at the macro-level; organizing care at the meso- and micro-level; developing workforces and resources; harnessing technology and IT; and making collaboratives and partnerships work.
Practical implications
These themes provide a model of what constitutes successful systems change across a wide sample of health systems, offering a store of knowledge about how reformers and improvement initiators achieve their goals.
Originality/value
Few comparative international studies of health systems include a sufficiently wide selection of low-, middle- and high-income countries in their analysis. This paper provides a more balanced approach to consider where achievements are being made across healthcare, and what we can do to replicate and spread successful examples of systems change internationally.
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The purpose of this paper is to assess the state of mobile library services available for students’ information needs at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. In…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the state of mobile library services available for students’ information needs at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. In addition, this study will determine the extent to which mobile services has helped the Mona libraries to have greater reach to students.
Design/methodology/approach
Surveys and content analysis were used to collect data. A comparative content analysis was used to highlight the strides made in mobile library services in universities across the world vis-à-vis the current reality in the Caribbean, specifically Jamaica.
Findings
The findings identified that there is a proliferation of mobile and internet users among university and college students and they are heavily using their devices for the furtherance of their educational attainment. Additionally, the findings indicated that libraries in the academic realm can benefit greatly from allowing their content to be accessible through these mobile devices, as it would also help with greater usage. Furthermore, this service is guaranteed greater support the distance programmes offered by these universities.
Research limitations/implications
This study will focus on assessing the state of mobile library services offered at the University of the West Indies, Mona Jamaica. This study will also determine the extent to which mobile services can help libraries to have greater reach to students and provide best practices for academic libraries implementing mobile service offerings to clients. This study will not attest to the financial feasibility of academic institutions to start such a programme.
Practical implications
The research excavated that the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, along with other academic libraries in the Caribbean are all not fully offering mobile library services to all their users. In addition, with the rise of technology and the proliferation of cell phones and other mobile devices, students (distance and onsite) expect a service that allows them greater access to the offerings of the university and their libraries.
Originality/value
This is the premier investigation of its kind into how the University of the West Indies Mona Campus has responded to the mobile library environment. The value of this research is in helping academic and university libraries in the Jamaica to identify the importance of leveraging the benefits of the dynamic technological era, allowing greater and wider reach through mobile library services proliferation and access to services. In addition, this study showed that academic libraries need to enhance services in a bid to provide greater support the teaching component of the university or college they serve.
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Robert J. Chandler, Charlotte Swift and Wendy Goodman
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the use of cognitive behavioural approaches to treat a gentleman with a learning disability who had been reported to the police for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the use of cognitive behavioural approaches to treat a gentleman with a learning disability who had been reported to the police for allegedly making contact with children using social media in an attempt to initiate a romantic relationship using a single case design.
Design/methodology/approach
An 11 session cognitive behavioural intervention was employed, comprising of index offence analysis, challenging distorted cognitions related to the offence, developing an internal focus for responsibility and psychoeducation with regards to “staying safe” online.
Findings
Follow up data demonstrated no improvements in victim empathy, nor in agreement ratings in terms of key cognitions associated with responsibility for offending behaviour.
Research limitations/implications
Whilst treatment efficacy was not established, this case study raises important questions that go beyond the single case design. Whilst the gentleman reported becoming “safer” in terms of initiating contact with unknown people via social media, this could not be substantiated, and is indicative of the cardinal difficulty of monitoring online recidivism. Generalisability of findings to the wider learning disability population is limited by a single case design.
Originality/value
This is the first published case study to the authors knowledge to evaluate cognitive behavioural approaches to reduce antisocial internet related behaviour in a forensic learning disability setting. Findings of considered within the context of the concept of minimisation of offending behaviour, the concept of “counterfeit deviance”, and also how best to measure therapeutic change within this population.