Prison Mental Health Screening tools: choices and sensitivity

Mental illness in a critical issue in prisons, and according a report published by the Prison Reform Trust for this year’s mental health awareness week (PRF, 2017), it is worsening. The figures indicate that 49% of women and 23% of men in UK prisons suffer from both anxiety and depression (general population rate: 15%); while 25% of female and 15% of male prisoners exhibit symptoms indicative of psychosis (general population rate: 4%). Even more alarmingly, self-harm in UK prisons reached a record high of 40,161 (up 7,848 from 2015), and the suicide rate has doubled since 2013, with 113 deaths in 2016

An Examination of the Insights and Experiences of Cuckooing Experts:Report For Kirklees Council

Introduction• County lines is used to define a nation-wide method of selling drugs• A county lines operation involves individuals who undertake various roles• Cuckooing is a form of exploitation in which individuals move themselves or others into the address of another• There are large intelligence gaps within policing• Hindered by the fact that cuckooing is not a home office classified crime type• The process in which individuals become a victim of cuckooing varies• Four typologies of cuckooing have been put forward: parasitic nest invading, quasi-cuckooing, coupling and local cuckooing.• Access to victims by offenders was often found to be via the drug dealing activity• Drug addiction may cause an individual to be vulnerable to cuckooing• A known unknown is what makes someone a suitable victim• One approach of stopping cuckooing was by issuing them ‘cuckooing letters’.Method• A total of 39 individuals took part in the study.• They were drawn from mostly policing, public sector and safeguarding roles• A questionnaire was administered in which they were asked about their experiences• The questionnaire was distributed through national exploitation working groups• The data was analysed using thematic analysisMain Findings• A number of core themes were generated from the findings such as the prevalence of the offence, risk factors related to it, signs and indicators of cuckooing, levels of awareness and challenges of dealing with it.Recommendations• A number of recommendations were made across 6 key areas: Education & Training, Data, Reporting, Legislation, Enforcement/Initiatives, Research.Conclusion• There is a serious lack of empirical work into the issue of cuckooing• While there has been advancement in data collection and data sharing further research is needed to better understand the nature of the issue overall

Cyber-Bullying And Children’s Unmonitored Media Violence Exposure

With technological evolution, interpersonal communication is constantly advancing; as a result comes the more frequent unregulated access of children to cyber-space and media violence exposure (DePaolis, & Williford, 2015), whilst risking involvement to cyber-bullying (CB). CB is commonly defined as purposefully causing repetitively harm to others through electronic devices created for interpersonal communication (Rigby, 2002). Its main differentiation from traditional bullying is the perpetrator’s ability to anonymously and effortless harass multiple victims at any time and geographic location (Hemphill, Tollit, Kotevski & Heerde, 2015). Research (for example see Mishna, Cook, Gadalla, Daciuk & Solomon, 2010) has indicated CB rates of up to 49.5% for cyber-victimisation and 33.7% for cyber-perpetration. Students consider some of the most common CB ways as posting victims’ embarrassing/humiliating videos on video-hosting sites; creating profiles on social media to humiliate victims and posting/forwarding victims’ private information/images without permission (NHS, 2015)

Crime location choices:A geographical analysis of German serial killers

The present study examined whether there are different processes operating in the crime location choices between body‐disposing and non‐body‐disposing serial killers and between sexual serial killers and acquisitive serial killers. A sample of 49 series of solved German serial killings is used to examine the differences in travelled distances between these groups of killers. Nonparametric tests revealed that body‐disposing and non‐body‐disposing serial killers and sexual and acquisitive serial killers did not constitute subgroups of serial killers regarding their spatial behaviour. The results suggest that the compared groups are subjected to the same factors that influence their travelled distances. Furthermore, the possible role of planning and anticipated emotions in crime location choices of serial killers is discussed, as well as the limitations of the study and recommendations for future research