Examining the need for a high level of therapeutic security at a regional forensic mental health service in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The ceiling of therapeutic security in Aotearoa New Zealand is medium security. The aim of this study is to identify and characterise a putative cohort of high-secure patients at a medium-secure regional forensic mental health service. A retrospective review of all admissions to a specific service was conducted over 3.

The appropriateness of DUNDRUM-3 and DUNDRUM-4 for Māori in forensic mental health services in New Zealand: participatory action research.

Background: The Auckland Regional Forensic Psychiatry Services (ARFPS) in New Zealand has introduced structured clinical judgment instruments developed in Ireland (DUNDRUM-3 and DUNDRUM-4) to assist staff decision-making regarding service users' clinical pathways. In New Zealand, Māori (the indigenous people) constitute 43% of the in-patient forensic mental health population. The aim of this study was to determine the face validity of the measures for Māori.

Impact of an assertive community treatment model of care on the treatment of prisoners with a serious mental illness.

Objectives: This study aims to describe the impact of a mental health assertive community treatment prison model of care (PMOC) on improving the ability to identify prisoner needs, provide interventions and monitor their efficacy.

Methods: We carried out a file review across five prisons of referrals in the year before the implementation of the PMOC in 2010 ( n = 423) compared with referrals in the year after ( n = 477).

Results: Some improvements in the identification of needs and providing interventions were detected.

From positive screen to engagement in treatment: a preliminary study of the impact of a new model of care for prisoners with serious mental illness.

Background: The high prevalence of serious mental illness (SMI) in prisons remains a challenge for mental health services. Many prisoners with SMI do not receive care. Screening tools have been developed but better detection has not translated to higher rates of treatment.

A prison mental health in-reach model informed by assertive community treatment principles: evaluation of its impact on planning during the pre-release period, community mental health service engagement and reoffending.

Background: It is well recognised that prisoners with serious mental illness (SMI) are at high risk of poor outcomes on return to the community. Early engagement with mental health services and other community agencies could provide the substrate for reducing risk.

Aim: To evaluate the impact of implementing an assertive community treatment informed prison in-reach model of care (PMOC) on post-release engagement with community mental health services and on reoffending rates.

Child murder by parents and evolutionary psychology.

This article explores the contribution of evolutionary theory to the understanding of causation and motive in filicide cases and also reviews special issues in the forensic evaluation of alleged perpetrators of filicide. Evolutionary social psychology seeks to understand the context in which our brains evolved, to understand human behaviors. The authors propose evolutionary theory as a framework theory to meaningfully appreciate research about filicide.

Mothers who kill: evolutionary underpinnings and infanticide law.

Women who kill their children present a profound challenge to accepted notions of motherhood and the protection offered by mothers to their children. Historically, societies have varied in the sanctions applied to perpetrators of such acts, across both time and place. Where penalties were once severe and punitive for mothers, in modern times some two dozen nations now have infanticide acts that reduce the penalties for mothers who kill their infants.

Patterns of mental health service contact before and after forensic mental health contact in New Zealand.

Objective: To describe patterns of mental health service contact before and after contact with a regional forensic mental health service (FMHS) to assist regional mental health service planning.

Method: All new referrals to Auckland Regional FMHS in 2006 were audited for contact with mental health services in the three years before and three years after their contact in 2006.

Results: A total of 925 identified individuals were referred to the Auckland Regional FMHS in 2006, predominantly through the court (81%) or prison (17%).