Design and implementation of community consultation for research conducted under exception from informed consent regulations for the PreVent and the PreVent 2 trials: Changes over time and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction: Emergency clinical research has played an important role in improving outcomes for acutely ill patients. This is due in part to regulatory measures that allow (EFIC) trials. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires sponsor-investigators to engage in community consultation and public disclosure activities prior to initiating an trial.

The Connecticut Mental Health Center: Celebrating 50 Years of a Successful Partnership Between the State and Yale University.

September 28, 2016, marked the 50th anniversary of the Connecticut Mental Health Center, a state-owned and state-operated joint venture between the state and Yale University built and sustained with federal, state, and university funds. Collaboration across these entities has produced a wide array of clinical, educational, and research initiatives, a few of which are described in this column. The missions of clinical care, research, and education remain the foundation for an organization that serves 5,000 individuals each year who are poor and who experience serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders.

A Consultation and Supervision Model for Developing the Forensic Psychiatric Opinion.

Receiving feedback on one's work from colleagues is an essential part of clinical and forensic psychiatric practice. Often the material on which feedback is sought concerns past cases. When the material relates to current cases, particular safeguards are needed to protect important interests.

So you're sorry? The role of remorse in criminal law.

The role of remorse in judicial decisions in the criminal justice system has been addressed in scholarship and remains controversial. The purpose of this qualitative research was to examine the views of sitting criminal judges on remorse, its assessment, and its relevance in their decision-making. After approval of the study design by the institutional review board, 23 judges were interviewed in an open-ended format.

Forensic mental health professionals in the immigration process.

This article adds to the existing literature on the role of mental health professionals in assisting attorneys in the asylum and refugee determination process primarily in the United States. The authors describe the legal context for asylum and refugee processing, challenges in conducting evaluations, diagnostic considerations, and specific competencies needed for mental health evaluators. Various cases are presented to illustrate key points.

Oral performance, identity, and representation in forensic psychiatry.

The specialty of forensic psychiatry is advancing in practice and in its scholarship. One task for an evolving discipline is to define and master the nature of its work. In this article we assert that the work of testifying in court is more than the sharing of specialized knowledge.

Citizenship, mental illness, and the criminal justice system.

The concept of citizenship in regard to persons with mental illness has gained increasing attention in recent years, but little empirical research has been conducted on this topic. In addition, little research or conceptual writing has been done on the topic of criminal justice in regard to citizenship for people with mental illness, in spite of the high incidence of criminal charges and incarceration among this group. We review our work on an applied theoretical framework of citizenship, including its origins in mental health outreach work to people who are homeless and in a jail diversion program.

Conceptualizing the forensic psychiatry report as performative narrative.

Forensic psychiatry has evolved into a recognized specialty. Two core competencies, often overlooked but commonplace in forensic psychiatry, are the constructing of forensic reports and the presenting of oral testimony. This article concerns the written forensic report and conceptualizes it as performative writing.

A peer-support, group intervention to reduce substance use and criminality among persons with severe mental illness.

Objective: This study compared the effectiveness of two interventions in reducing alcohol use, drug use, and criminal justice charges for persons with severe mental illnesses: first, a community-oriented group intervention with citizenship training and peer support that was combined with standard clinical treatment, including jail diversion services, and second, standard clinical treatment with jail diversion services alone.

Methods: A total of 114 adults with serious mental illness participated in a 2 x 3 prospective longitudinal, randomized clinical trial with two levels of intervention (group and peer support for the experimental condition and standard services for the control) and three interviews (baseline, six months, and 12 months). Self-report questionnaires assessed alcohol and drug use, and program databases assessed criminal justice contacts.

Accuracy of eyewitness identification is significantly associated with performance on a standardized test of face recognition.

Objectives: This study assessed the relationship between Eyewitness Accuracy regarding a person met under conditions of high stress and performance on a standardized, neutral test of memory for human faces.

Method: Fifty-three U.S.

Commentary: the place of performative writing in forensic psychiatry.

In this issue of the Journal, Robert Simon has explored the subject of the place that writing should occupy in the professional life of forensic psychiatrists. We have taken the platform so elegantly constructed by this erudite and prolific author and used it to discuss the quotidian and concrete task of writing the customary forensic psychiatry report. We look to other disciplines for mechanisms to analyze the written forensic report: concepts of voice, portraiture, and narrative.

Pathological lying revisited.

Although pathological lying was first described in the medical literature over 100 years ago, it remains a poorly understood concept. Psychiatrists continue to grapple with the full ramifications of the condition, even though interest specifically in pathological lying seems to have waned in recent times. The impact of pathological lying deserves critical attention from forensic psychiatrists because of the implications that untruths have in a legal context.

The state of contemporary risk assessment research.

The focus on assessing dangerousness in routine psychiatric practice developed when relatively little was known about factors related to violence, and the accuracy of predicting violence was distinctly below chance. Since the 1990s, however, significant research attention has been directed toward factors related to violence and mental illness, as well as toward factors related to the accuracy of risk assessment techniques. Sociodemographic and environmental variables have been identified as significant predictors of violence, as has the presence of substance abuse.