Risk assessment tools are widely used in psychiatric hospitals and criminal justice systems to help predict violent behaviour and inform sentencing and release decisions. Yet their predictive accuracy remains uncertain and expert opinion is divided, according to a new systematic review published in the BMJ. An international team of researchers led by Seena Fazel from [read the full story…]
Women who have survived physical or sexual abuse may continue to experience post traumatic stress disorder and other mental health complaints well into later life, according to a new study published in the Journal of Women’s Health. Researchers from Connecticut conducted this systematic review which involved finding what they call ’empirical studies’ from the last [read the full story…]
The authors of this paper set out to look at rates of sexual abuse and interpersonal trauma in people with learning disability. They hoped to explore the relationship between such trauma and psychological distress and to describe a psychotherapeutic intervention for such people. The findings from a review of the literature suggested an inverse relationship [read the full story…]
Unsurprisingly, research shows that people who have deviant sexual preferences are more likely to commit sexual offences, so it makes sense that if we can more accurately identify deviant sexual preferences, we will be able to reduce crimes of this nature. Phallometry (also known as penile plethysmography or phallometric assessment) involves placing a device around [read the full story…]
This systematic literature review, conducted by the Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment, scrutinises the scientific evidence for preventive medical and psychological interventions directed at sex offenders. The review found major weaknesses in the evidence base and concluded that: In the absence of findings from reliable research, a reasonable treatment and follow-up strategy might be [read the full story…]
This study looked at the adult protection monitoring data collected by two local authorities comparing referrals for alleged sexual abuse to referrals for other types of abuse. The authors found that over 20% related to alleged sexual abuse, with 66% of these for women. Sexual abuse was confirmed in just over a 25%. They conclude [read the full story…]
