Dr. Elizondo is Assistant Clinic Professor - Volunteer, and Dr. McNiel is Professor of Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, CA. Dr. Binder is Professor and Director of Psychiatry and Law Program, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA.
Published: June 2019
AI Article Synopsis
Article Abstract
Adolescents are increasingly exposed to Internet-facilitated crime as they spend more time online. The mental health risks and legal consequences for youth involved in cyberstalking are growing areas of concern. The nature of online stalking presents several challenges regarding investigation, fair adjudication, fact-finding, and legislation. Laws governing online stalking behaviors inconsistently reference the age of a victim or perpetrator as a factor for consideration in case disposition. During adjudication, the forensic psychiatrist may be asked to evaluate the victim or perpetrator involved in cyberstalking. This article focuses on the current legal landscape governing cyberstalking behavior involving adolescents, the roles a forensic psychiatrist may assume in this context, and the opportunity to bring a developmental perspective to these cases.
This practice resource seeks to describe salient problems within reproductive psychiatry (also known as women's mental health) for the practice of forensic psychiatry. Understanding is critical and can help combat gender bias in such evaluations. Forensic psychiatric evaluations in the criminal realm, including evaluations related to neonaticide, infanticide, filicide, child abuse, and kidnapping by cesarean, require an understanding of reproductive psychiatry.
Objective: To estimate the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in serving members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in the year 2015-2016.
Methods: The electronic health records of serving members of the ADF were screened for the term PTSD over a 12-month period. A 10% sample of these records were examined alongside a randomised matched sample of records.
Of the various rules establishing a mental health clinician's legal duty to take precautions to protect their patient from harming others, the most common is the specificity rule that limits the protective duty to warn reasonably identifiable victims. The specificity rule is important wherein the main or only specified protective measure is warning the victim. In the last quarter century, Pennsylvania adopted the specificity rule from its Supreme Court Emerich decision.
This study covers Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) survivors who had never disclosed the abuse until their psychiatric interview. There is a clear lack of understanding of which factors contribute to delays in the disclosure of CSA. Thus, we aimed to examine the risk factors and sociodemographic variables that may inhibit CSA disclosures.
