Persistent punishment : users views of short prison sentences

Semi-structured interviews were conducted of 22 prisoners to gather information about the characteristic features of short prison sentences. Themes raised in comments included: the frequency and quality of sentences, addiction, family, and penal legitimacy. Most of the participants had extensive experience of prison, and the effects of this played out across sentences and years, accumulating and amplifying impacts. And, despite expressions of guilt and remorse, most participants saw their sentence as unjust, and mainly a reaction to offending history. We conclude by suggesting the need for research to shift focus from evaluating individual penal interventions towards more holistic and narrative accounts that cut across sentences

The Role of Polar Pili in the Adherence of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa to Injured Canine Tracheal Cells: A Semiquantitative Morphologic Study

Pseudomonas aeruginosa adheres to respiratory epithelial cells in a highly specific fashion. In order to study the role of P. aeruginosa polar pili in the adherence process we conducted a quantitative morphological electron microscopic examination of P. aeruginosa adherence to SO2 injured canine tracheal cells in vitro. A pilin lacking background strain of P. aeruginosa PAK (BLP2) was constructed using a gene replacement and it in turn was engineered to express either the pilin gene of P. aeruginosa PAO, PAK , or no pilin gene . After 30 minutes incubation of these bacterial strains with injured canine tracheal rings the P. aeruginosa strains expressing pili adhered quantitatively more to the injured tracheal cells than did the pili lacking strains. PAO bearing strains adhered in greater numbers than PAK bearing strains. Healthy tracheal cells did not have any bacteria bound to their surfaces. The bacteria bound to the cilia and lateral edge of the exfoliating tracheal cells. Invasion of tracheal cells by piliated P. aeruginosa bacteria and penetration into the submucosa was also demonstrated. These data confirm the role of pili as important adhesins to injured tracheal cells. The difference in the adherence characteristics of pilin types PAK versus PAO may relate to the differences in the primary structure of these two pilin molecules

The offender personality disorder (OPD) pathway for men in England and Wales: A qualitative study of pathway user views about services, perceived impact on psychological wellbeing, and implications for desistance

The offender personality disorder (OPD) Pathway is a network of services across prison, health and community settings in England and Wales providing psychological support for high-risk people who have offended and are thought to have a personality disorder. As part of a national evaluation of the Pathway, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 36 Pathway users to determine their views about their experiences in these services; and whether and how these impacted on their psychological wellbeing. Framework analysis was used to analyze the data. Participants reported positive therapeutic relationships with staff; improved psychological wellbeing; and for some, a shift away from antisocial toward more pro-social identities. They also described a negative impact of staff turnover and uncertainty about the role of prison officers and psychologists within prison services. Pathway services are able to engage individuals who have not previously engaged with services. Constancy of staff is fundamental to the Pathway

Dual targeting of the epigenome via FACT complex and histone deacetylase is a potent treatment strategy for DIPG

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is an aggressive and incurable childhood brain tumor for which new treatments are needed. CBL0137 is an anti-cancer compound developed from quinacrine that targets facilitates chromatin transcription (FACT), a chromatin remodeling complex involved in transcription, replication, and DNA repair. We show that CBL0137 displays profound cytotoxic activity against a panel of patient-derived DIPG cultures by restoring tumor suppressor TP53 and Rb activity. Moreover, in an orthotopic model of DIPG, treatment with CBL0137 significantly extends animal survival. The FACT subunit SPT16 is found to directly interact with H3.3K27M, and treatment with CBL0137 restores both histone H3 acetylation and trimethylation. Combined treatment of CBL0137 with the histone deacetylase inhibitor panobinostat leads to inhibition of the Rb/E2F1 pathway and induction of apoptosis. The combination of CBL0137 and panobinostat significantly prolongs the survival of mice bearing DIPG orthografts, suggesting a potential treatment strategy for DIPG

Optimal liability sharing and court errors: an exploratory analysis

We focus in this paper on the effects of court errors on the optimal sharing of liability between firms and financiers, as an environmental policy instrument. Using a structural model of the interactions between firms, financial institutions, governments and courts we show, through numerical simulations, the distortions in liability sharing between firms and financiers that the imperfect implementation of government policies implies. We consider in particular the role played by the efficiency of the courts in avoiding Type I (finding an innocent firm guilty of inappropriate care) and Type II (finding a guilty firm innocent of inappropriate care) errors. This role is considered in a context where liability sharing is already distorted (when compared with first best values) due not only to the courts' own imperfect assessment of safety care levels exerted by firm but also to the presence of moral hazard and adverse selection in financial contracting, as well as of noncongruence of objectives between firms and financiers on the one hand and social welfare maximization on the other. Our results indicate that an increase in the efficiency of the court system in avoiding errors raises safety care levels, thereby reducing the probability of accident, and allowing the social welfare maximizing government to impose a lower liability [higher] share for firms [financiers] as well as a lower standard level of care

Post-release reforms for short prison sentences: re-legitimising and widening the net of punishment

Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) promised a ‘revolution’ in the way offenders are managed, providing a renewed focus on short sentence prisoners. The TR reforms extends mandatory post-release supervision and tailored through-the-gate resettlement provisions to a group that has predominately faced a ‘history of neglect’ yet often present with the most acute needs within the criminal justice system. However, existing literature underlines that serving short sentences lack ‘utility’ and can be counter-productive to facilitating effective rehabilitation. This article explores the purposes of providing post release supervision for short sentences, firstly exploring a previous attempt to reform short sentences; (the now defunct) ‘Custody Plus’ within the 2003 Criminal Justice Act and then the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 within the TR reforms. This article contends that both post release reforms have sought to re-affirm and re-legitimise prison as the dominant form of punishment in society- or what Carlen refers to as ‘carceral clawback’. This article will also use Cohen’s analysis on social control to establish that post release supervision will serve to ‘widen the net’ extend the period of punishment and oversight and will only reinforce a form of enforced ‘state obligated rehabilitation’ that will undermine efforts made to resettle short sentence prisoners

In vitro and in vivo drug screens of tumor cells identify novel therapies for high-risk child cancer

Biomarkers which better match anticancer drugs with cancer driver genes hold the promise of improved clinical responses and cure rates. We developed a precision medicine platform of rapid high-throughput drug screening (HTS) and patient-derived xenografting (PDX) of primary tumor tissue, and evaluated its potential for treatment identification among 56 consecutively enrolled high-risk pediatric cancer patients, compared with conventional molecular genomics and transcriptomics. Drug hits were seen in the majority of HTS and PDX screens, which identified therapeutic options for 10 patients for whom no targetable molecular lesions could be found. Screens also provided orthogonal proof of drug efficacy suggested by molecular analyses and negative results for some molecular findings. We identified treatment options across the whole testing platform for 70% of patients. Only molecular therapeutic recommendations were provided to treating oncologists and led to a change in therapy in 53% of patients, of whom 29% had clinical benefit. These data indicate that in vitro and in vivo drug screening of tumor cells could increase therapeutic options and improve clinical outcomes for high-risk pediatric cancer patients

The impact on staff of working with personality disordered offenders: A systematic review

© 2015 Freestone et al. Background: Personality disordered offenders (PDOs) are generally considered difficult to manage and to have a negative impact on staff working with them. Aims: This study aimed to provide an overview of studies examining the impact on staff of working with PDOs, identify impact areas associated with working with PDOs, identify gaps in existing research,and direct future research efforts. Methods: The authors conducted a systematic review of the English-language literature from 1964-2014 across 20 databases in the medical and social sciences. Results: 27 papers were included in the review. Studies identified negative impacts upon staff including: negative attitudes, burnout, stress, negative counter-transferential experiences; two studies found positive impacts of job excitement and satisfaction, and the evidence related to perceived risk of violence from PDOs was equivocal. Studies demonstrated considerable heterogeneity and meta-analysis was not possible. The overall level of identified evidence was low: 23 studies (85%) were descriptive only, and only one adequately powered cohort study was found. Conclusions: The review identified a significant amount of descriptive literature, but only one cohort study and no trials or previous systematic reviews of literatures. Clinicians and managers working with PDOs should be aware of the potential impacts identified, but there is an urgent need for further research focusing on the robust evaluation of interventions to minimise harm to staff working with offenders who suffer from personality disorder Copyright