Expanding treatment pathways for sexually abusive behaviour in young people: an examination of Therapeutic Treatment Orders.

Young people who engage in sexually abusive behaviour account for a substantial number of sexual offences worldwide. Despite this, a limited body of work has explored the optimal pathways into treatment for these young people. This is an important question to explore given the iatrogenic effects of receiving treatment following incarceration and burgeoning legislative frameworks focusing on the diversion of youth who sexually offend.

An Exploration of Risk Factors for Further Police Contact Among Females Known for Online Child Sexual Exploitation Offenses.

Despite increases in online child sexual exploitation (OCSE) internationally, no study has examined risk factors for re-offending among females who perpetrate OCSE, resulting in limited knowledge regarding the idiosyncratic needs of this cohort. This study explored factors predictive of further police contact among 116 females known to police for OCSE offenses in Victoria, Australia. Four binary regressions were run for each of Any, Violent, and Non-Violent re-offending, with one regression each focusing on characteristics related to offending history, index offending, co-offending, and victimization.

Workplace culture for forensic mental health services: a mixed methods descriptive study.

Background: Workplace culture is theorized to involve a combination of elements such as assumptions, beliefs, and values. An effective workplace culture is safe and person-centred, which enables staff to flourish. However, there is no empirical evidence describing or informing workplace culture for forensic mental health settings.

Discriminative and predictive validity of risk assessment measures for women incarcerated for serious violent offences in Australia.

Despite the growing population of women in Australian prisons, limited research has explored whether commonly used risk assessments - predominantly developed and tested on men - are valid for women. We investigated the discriminative and predictive validity of the Level of Service Inventory-Revised: Screening Version (LSI-R:SV), Level of Service/Risk, Need, Responsivity (LS/RNR), and the Historical, Clinical, Risk Management 20-Version 3 (HCR-20) for Victorian women imprisoned for serious violence (N = 79). The LS/RNR was related to any, violent, and non-violent recidivism, and both the LSI-R:SV and the H-Scale of the HCR-20 were related to violent recidivism, with the H-Scale demonstrating strong predictive validity for violence.

Statistical learning methods and cross-cultural fairness: Trade-offs and implications for risk assessment instruments.

The use of statistical learning methods has recently increased within the risk assessment literature. They have primarily been used to increase accuracy and the area under the curve (AUC, i.e.

Using the Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression (DASA) to assess the impact of unit atmosphere on violence risk assessment.

What Is Known On The Subject: Research suggests that the Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression (DASA) is a useful risk assessment instrument to identify individuals who might be at risk of aggression in mental health inpatient units. Although, risk assessment research has typically focused on an individual's risk of aggression, recent research has begun exploring whether the DASA could be used to assess the likelihood that a group of patients would be aggressive.

What The Paper Adds To Existing Knowledge: While the DASA was useful for assessing whether an individual was likely to be aggressive, the group average score was not a useful indicator for the likelihood of aggression once the individual DASA score was taken into consideration.

Investigating the dynamic nature of multiple risk assessment instruments in a forensic mental health hospital.

Readministration of multiple risk assessment instruments to determine the risk of aggression over the short, medium, and long term is common practice in many forensic mental health settings. Justification for the repeated administration and use of multiple instruments is based on purported differences in discriminative validity of risk factors according to whether they are characterized as static, stable, or acute, and the composition of these tools, in terms of the relative balance of different types of risk factors, which can impact the discriminative validity of these instruments over different follow-up periods. However, research has yet to determine whether the use of multiple and repeated administration of risk assessment instruments improves identification of risk, and it may be the case that the heavy burden on service providers to administer multiple instruments is unwarranted.

Special considerations to the assessment of fitness to stand trial in Australia.

Australian criminal law presumes that defendants are fit to stand trial until proven otherwise on the balance of probabilities. Forensic mental health experts often provide opinions to the court about defendants' fitness, which requires them to understand the legal context within which the court decides the defendant's fitness status. This article outlines important case law considerations to the assessment of fitness in Australia, including the notions that fitness must be evaluated when there is a 'real and substantial question', assessments should be 'reasonable and common sense' and accommodations should be considered when impairments in capacity are evident.

Determinants and Outcomes of the Therapeutic Alliance in Treating Justice-Involved Youth: A Systematic Review of Quantitative and Qualitative Research.

A large body of research supports the role of the therapeutic alliance in predicting positive change in psychotherapy. This systematic review examined determinants of alliance quality and its association with treatment outcomes in an under-served and under-researched population-justice-involved youth-with whom several challenges and contextual considerations arise that bear relevance to the alliance. The search strategy yielded 23 independent studies meeting eligibility criteria and describing diverse treatments: 14 quantitative records synthesized narratively and nine qualitative studies that underwent thematic analysis.

The cross-cultural fairness of the LS/RNR: An Australian analysis.

Objective: Cross-cultural research into risk assessment instruments has often identified comparable levels of discrimination. However, cross-cultural fairness is rarely addressed. Therefore, this study explored the discrimination and fairness of the Level of Service/Risk, Need, Responsivity (LS/RNR) within a sample of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males.

Emergency department presentations in the first weeks following release from prison among men with a history of injecting drug use in Victoria, Australia: A prospective cohort study.

Objective: Rates of emergency department (ED) use are higher among people released from prison than in the general population. However, little is known about ED presentations specifically among people with a history of injecting drug use (IDU) leaving prison. We measured the incidence of ED presentation in the three months following release from prison, among a cohort of men with histories of IDU, and determined pre-release characteristics associated with presenting to an ED during this period.

Psychiatric well-being among men leaving prison reporting a history of injecting drug use: A longitudinal analysis.

Background: Community reintegration from prison is typically stressful, with several health and social outcomes impacting psychiatric well-being during this time, often exacerbated among individuals with histories of drug use. Longitudinal data was used to assess change in psychiatric well-being over 2 years following release from prison among men who reported a recent history of injecting drug use.

Methods: Data for this study come from the Prison and Transition Health cohort study of 400 men recruited in prison prior to release and followed up over three time points.

Strategies to maximise study retention and limit attrition bias in a prospective cohort study of men reporting a history of injecting drug use released from prison: the prison and transition health study.

Background: There are significant challenges associated with studies of people released from custodial settings, including loss to follow-up in the community. Interpretation of findings with consideration of differences between those followed up and those not followed up is critical in the development of evidence-informed policies and practices. We describe attrition bias in the Prison and Transition Health (PATH) prospective cohort study, and strategies employed to minimise attrition.

The Prison and Transition Health (PATH) cohort study: Prevalence of health, social, and crime characteristics after release from prison for men reporting a history of injecting drug use in Victoria, Australia.

Background: People who inject drugs are overrepresented in prison and have diverse and complex health needs. However, outcomes after release from prison are poorly understood, limiting effective interventions supporting community reintegration. We describe the prevalence of socio-demographics, physical and mental health, alcohol and other drug use, and crime characteristics of men with histories of injecting drug use after their release from prison in Victoria, Australia.

A Clinical Decision Support System to Prevent Aggression and Reduce Restrictive Practices in a Forensic Mental Health Service.

Objective: Preventing aggression and reducing restrictive practices in mental health units rely on routine, accurate risk assessment accompanied by appropriate and timely intervention. The authors studied the use of an electronic clinical decision support system that combines two elements, the Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression instrument and an aggression prevention protocol (eDASA+APP), in acute forensic mental health units for men.

Methods: The authors conducted a cluster-randomized controlled trial incorporating a crossover design with baseline, intervention, and washout periods in a statewide, secure forensic mental health service.

Testing the Factor Structure of the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) in an Australian Violent Offender Population.

Although psychopathy is a correlate of recidivism, including violent offending, the inclusion of antisocial behavior items in the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) assessment instruments has been debated. Further, the latent factor structure underpinning the PCL measures has not been comprehensively validated in Australia. This study examined the construct validity of the PCL:SV in a sample of 192 Australian male violent offenders using structural equation modeling.

The Personality Inventory for -Brief Form: An Examination of Internal Consistency, Factor Structure, and Relationship to Aggression in an Incarcerated Offender Sample.

This study evaluated the internal consistency and factor structure of the Personality Inventory for -Brief Form (PID-5-BF), and its relationship to aggression in 438 incarcerated Australian male offenders. Results provide support for the internal consistency and five-factor and bifactor structure of the PID-5-BF. The PID-5-BF total score, as well as the domains of Antagonism, Disinhibition, and Negative Affect (low), demonstrated significant relationships with aggression.

Patterns of Maltreatment Co-Occurrence in Incarcerated Youth in Australia.

Child maltreatment research is increasingly recognizing the need to capture patterns of co-occurrence between different types of abuse/neglect and to consider their associations with psychosocial functioning. Few studies have examined these issues in justice-involved youth despite the fact that rates of maltreatment and trauma-related psychopathology are disproportionately high among this population. This study examined profiles of self-reported child physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect among incarcerated juveniles in Victoria, Australia, using latent class analysis.

Association Between Early Contact With Mental Health Services After an Offense and Reoffending in Individuals Diagnosed With Psychosis.

Importance: Psychosis is a known risk factor for offending behavior, but little is known about the association between clinical contact with mental health services after an offense and reoffending.

Objective: To examine the association between early contact with mental health services and reoffending after an index offense in individuals with psychosis.

Design, Setting, And Participants: In this cohort study, individuals diagnosed with psychosis before their index offense from July 1, 2001, to December 31, 2012, and who received a noncustodial sentence were identified by linking health and offending databases in New South Wales, Australia.

Child Sexual Abuse and Risk of Revictimization: Impact of Child Demographics, Sexual Abuse Characteristics, and Psychiatric Disorders.

Approximately half of child sexual abuse (CSA) victims report sexual revictimization later in life; however, there is limited rigorous evidence concerning factors contributing to sexual and nonsexual forms of revictimization. This article investigates the relationships between CSA and a range of revictimization experiences. It also examines the role of other individual-level factors (demographics, CSA characteristics, psychiatric disorders) in the risk of revictimization.

Predictive validity of the HCR-20 in a sample of Australian forensic psychiatric patients.

The Historical Clinical Risk Management-20 Version 3 is the latest iteration in the HCR-20 series, adopting novel changes such as the addition of Relevance ratings and non-requirement to include the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. This study aimed to examine these changes and compare the predictive validity of the HCR-20 to the HCR-20. The sample comprised of 100 forensic psychiatric patients, retrospectively followed up for a maximum period of approximately 13 years post-discharge from the Thomas Embling Hospital.