This article appears in our latest newsletter (Summer 2023) which can be downloaded here.
The long-awaited House of Lords launch meeting hosted by Lord Keith Bradley went very well and we had quite a lot of positive feedback. There was one glitch however, the booklet we had prepared for the meeting didn’t arrive in time so this meant a lot of hurried printing to get the agenda circulated. The lesson from this is don’t rely on Hermes/EVRI, to deliver a parcel on time (see also Matt Rudd in the Sunday Times of 30th April).
There are still a few copies of the booklet available, if you email us at enquiries@crimeinmind.co.uk.
A relevant piece of news is that the Royal College of psychiatrists has a new President from July, Dr Lade Smith a forensic psychiatrist from the Maudsley Hospital. She says that she will make academic activity a priority. This is good news; we are not alone in the neglect which universities are showing towards medical science.
We hope you like the new look newsletter. It has an emphasis on development. If we are to concern ourselves with prevention of behaviour disturbances then it is childhood and adolescence we need to focus on and we are trying to include relevant research. We should all take note of Heidi Hales admonition to develop research groups which may help to cut through the overall shortage of funds. Gwen Adshead has given us some suggestions for caring for young adults in custody. These make obvious sense and very good topics for research programmes. Dr Janes tells us that local authorities do not comply with their duties towards children as well as they should and recommends further qualitative research on children’s rights in mental health care settings.
You will also notice that we are hoping to include a regular feature of useful law reports for forensic psychiatry. Legal decisions can often lead to fruitful research ideas and we are grateful to Professor Rix for helping us with this.
Please keep your eye on the Members website and do let us have contributions for the Newsletter.
Research can transform lives. We want to support discoveries about what helps people with mental disorder who have been victims of criminal behaviour, or perpetrators of criminal behaviour, and their families, and the clinicians and others who treat them and, indeed, the wider community when its members are in contact with these problems. More effective prevention is the ideal, when this is not possible, we need more effective, evidenced interventions for recovery and restoration of safety.
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