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Summary: Applications for detention under civil sections of the England and Wales Mental Health Act 1983 require at least one recommendation from a registered medical practitioner who is approved under section 12 of the Act. The Mental Health Act 2007 introduced multi-professional approved clinicians who may act as a patient's responsible clinician with responsibilities that include renewal of detention for treatment. Approved clinicians who are medical practitioners are automatically approved for section 12 purposes, whereas other approved clinicians are not. It is argued in this paper that this inconsistency is illogical, has implications for patient care and needs to be remedied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a literature review of principal academies in urban public school districts, with an examination of five prototypical academies. Senge's five disciplines of learning organizations and Guskey's optimal mix model for professional development are linked to form the conceptual perspectives guiding the review. The analysis reveals commonalities in the urban academies' organization, conceptual underpinnings, knowledge bases, and functions, with variations centered on contextual factors. We interrelate and link our findings with the perspectives of Senge and Guskey to inform a proposed model for urban public school academies for principals.

History records that trade and trade finance, vital to economic advancement and prosperity, have benefited profoundly from technological evolution and accompanying supportive transnational law. Today, the blossoming of technology, most notably digitalization, has the potential to greatly facilitate both domestic and international trade and, just as importantly, to assist in fulfilling the environmental and social goals critical to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. However, obstacles to digital trade arise from the existing legal and regulatory frameworks. Accordingly, legal reforms are overdue. Impetus is now needed to create a fully supportive transnational legal environment. There are several examples of where the technology exists, but the law frustrates its effective deployment. The laws of most jurisdictions require certain trade documents (like bills of lading, payment, and title instruments) to be recorded in a tangible form (paper). The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) estimates that digitalizing trade documents could reduce transaction costs by 80 per cent and eliminate billions of paper documents in the trade system. A limited number of jurisdictions have reformed their laws to address this gap and innovative private sector actors have taken the initiative to benefit from these reforms. An example includes the development of the Distributed Ledger Payment Commitment by BAFT that relies on narrow but effective changes in Delaware law governing promissory notes; others chose to be governed by Singapore law, which recently amended to align with the Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR). Law can be an enabler of digital trade. To this end, work has begun, including by the ICC and the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law. But the reform needs to be accelerated. This article considers the benefits of digital trade, key legal obstacles, and how transnational law can enable innovation and digitalization not only of the vast volumes of paper but of the entire trade and trade finance processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Alcohol use and misuse may be lower in people with intellectual disability (ID) than in the general population but may be related to offending. Method: Alcohol-related crime and history of alcohol use was recorded in 477 participants with ID referred to forensic ID services and related to offending. Results: Level of alcohol-related crime and history of alcohol misuse was lower than in some previous studies at 5.9% and 20.8%, respectively. History of alcohol abuse was associated with alcohol-related offences and theft. Higher rates of alcohol problem history were associated with histories of a number of offences, psychiatric disturbance in adulthood, psychiatric disturbance in childhood, and experiences of childhood adversity. Most effect sizes were weak or moderate. Conclusions: The convergence of childhood adversity, psychiatric problems in childhood and adulthood, and alcohol abuse is consistent with studies that have found these as risk markers for offending.

Personality disorder is prevalent among offenders with intellectual disabilities (ID), and it is associated with their risk for violence and recurrent offending behaviour. A new staff-rated instrument, the Personality Disorder Characteristics Checklist (PDCC), designed to screen for ICD-10 dissocial and emotionally unstable personality characteristics was evaluated for its reliability and validity, as applied to 129 male forensic patients with ID. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were very good. Supportive evidence for concurrent and discriminant validity was obtained in conjunction with an established staff-rated instrument, but not for patient self-report measures. Construct validity support was found for the PDCC in association with violent offence and hospital assault history and in significantly accounting for the number of physical assaults in hospital, controlling for multiple covariates. Results for the new measure were favourable in comparison to established instruments. It clinical utility for treatment planning and for the management of risk is discussed. (Contains 6 tables.)

This article systematically reviews the literature on the effects of adverse life events or trauma on people with intellectual disabilities. It is important to systematically examine empirical evidence of the effects of trauma in people with intellectual disabilities as to date the number of studies in this area is not substantial, and the effects of trauma seen in the predominately general population literature are not necessarily transferable to the intellectual disability population. Identification of the effects of trauma on people with intellectual disabilities facilitates case recognition and appropriate treatment. Fifteen articles were selected for the review, and the results suggest that studies to date have been hampered by the lack of a consistent definition of trauma and the lack of a reliable and valid means of measuring the effects of trauma in people with intellectual disabilities. The review also indicates a lack of studies establishing causal links between life events and trauma. (Contains 4 tables.)

The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) is the most widely used measure of psychopathy in forensic clinical practice, but the generalizability of the measure to offenders with intellectual disabilities (ID) has not been clearly established. This study examined the structural equivalence and scalar equivalence of the PCL-R in a sample of 185 male offenders with ID in forensic mental health settings, as compared with a sample of 1,212 male prisoners without ID. Three models of the PCL-R's factor structure were evaluated with confirmatory factor analysis. The 3-factor hierarchical model of psychopathy was found to be a good fit to the ID PCL-R data, whereas neither the 4-factor model nor the traditional 2-factor model fitted. There were no cross-group differences in the factor structure, providing evidence of structural equivalence. However, item response theory analyses indicated metric differences in the ratings of psychopathy symptoms between the ID group and the comparison prisoner group. This finding has potential implications for the interpretation of PCL-R scores obtained with people with ID in forensic psychiatric settings. (Contains 6 notes, 2 tables, and 5 figures.)

Background: This report describes a cognitive behavioural group intervention for women with mild and borderline intellectual disabilities detained in a secure hospital setting because of their fire-setting behaviour. The study aimed to examine participants' motivations for setting fires, their responses to an intervention designed specifically for this group and to monitor their progress over an extended follow-up period. Methods: A number of fire-specific and clinical assessments were administered before the intervention started and immediately after it concluded to examine trends in the group data. Detailed case study material was collected in order to describe participants' engagement in and reactions to the treatment process, and their status at 2-year follow-up. Results: The intervention successfully engaged participants in the therapy process, all of whom completed the programme. Scores on measures related to fire-related treatment targets and clinical measures pertinent to motivations for fire-setting generally improved following the intervention. There were no reports of participants setting any fires 2 years after the intervention programme was completed. Conclusions: The group intervention appeared to be acceptable and beneficial to study participants. This pilot study needs to be extended into a more robust evaluation of this approach with this group.

Systematic assessment of anger among people with developmental disabilities has been lacking, especially for hospital inpatients. Reliability and validity of anger self-report psychometric scales were investigated with 129 male patients, mostly forensic. Anger prevalence and its relationship to demographic, cognitive, and personality variables and to hospital assaultive behavior were examined. High internal and intermeasure consistency, and some concurrent validity with staff ratings, were found. Retrospective validity regarding physically assaultive behavior in the hospital was obtained. Hierarchical regressions revealed that patient-reported anger was a significant predictor of assaults postadmission, controlling for age, length of stay, IQ, violence offense history, and personality variables.