Offender rehabilitation : a normative framework for forensic psychologists

Community protection from offenders is addressed through punishment, deterrence, incapacitation, and/or rehabilitation. The current public policy debate about community protection refers to community rights as opposed to offender rights as if the two are mutually exclusive. However, in this article it will be argued that offender rehabilitation can enhance community protection if it addresses community rights and offender rights. The author proposes a normative framework to guide forensic psychologists in offender rehabilitation. The normative framework considers psychological theory&mdash;the risk-need model to address community rights and the good lives model to address offender rights. However, forensic psychologists operate within the context of the criminal justice system and so legal theory will also be considered. Therapeutic jurisprudence can balance community rights and offender rights within a human rights perspective. The proposed normative framework guides forensic psychologists in the assessment of risk, the treatment of need, and the management of readiness in balancing community rights and offender rights. Within a human rights perspective, forensic psychologists have a duty to provide offenders with the opportunity to make autonomous decisions about whether to accept or reject rehabilitation. <br /

Synchrotron radiation from a charge moving along a helical orbit inside a dielectric cylinder

The radiation emitted by a charged particle moving along a helical orbit inside a dielectric cylinder immersed into a homogeneous medium is investigated. Expressions are derived for the electromagnetic potentials, electric and magnetic fields, and for the spectral-angular distribution of radiation in the exterior medium. It is shown that under the Cherenkov condition for dielectric permittivity of the cylinder and the velocity of the particle image on the cylinder surface, strong narrow peaks are present in the angular distribution for the number of radiated quanta. At these peaks the radiated energy exceeds the corresponding quantity for a homogeneous medium by some orders of magnitude. The results of numerical calculations for the angular distribution of radiated quanta are presented and they are compared with the corresponding quantities for radiation in a homogeneous medium. The special case of relativistic charged particle motion along the direction of the cylinder axis with non-relativistic transverse velocity (helical undulator) is considered in detail. Various regimes for the undulator parameter are discussed. It is shown that the presence of the cylinder can increase essentially the radiation intensity.Comment: 18 pages, 8 EPS figure

Imprisonment and internment: Comparing penal facilities North and South

Recent references to the ‘warehouse prison’ in the United States and the prisión-depósito in Latin America seem to indicate that penal confinement in the western hemisphere has converged on a similar model. However, this article suggests otherwise. It contrasts penal facilities in North America and Latin America in terms of six interrelated aspects: regimentation; surveillance; isolation; supervision; accountability; and formalization. Quantitatively, control in North American penal facilities is assiduous (unceasing, persistent and intrusive), while in Latin America it is perfunctory (sporadic, indifferent and cursory). Qualitatively, North American penal facilities produce imprisonment (which enacts penal intervention through confinement), while in Latin America they produce internment (which enacts penal intervention through release). Closely entwined with this qualitative difference are distinct practices of judicial involvement in sentencing and penal supervision. Those practices, and the cultural and political factors that underpin them, represent an interesting starting point for the explanation of the contrasting nature of imprisonment and internment

Sourcing illegal drugs as a hidden older user: the ideal of ‘social supply’

Aims: At a time of growing awareness regarding the non-commercial supply of illegal drugs between friends, this article explores the significance of so-called ‘social supply’ for a group of ‘hidden’ users of illegal drugs aged 40 and over. Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 users of illegal drugs aged 40 and over who were not in contact with the criminal justice system or treatment agencies regarding their use. Participants were recruited using snowball sampling. Findings: Accessing drugs through the commercial market was considered as a less attractive proposition than social supply by the participants. The majority used only socially supplied drugs, with some engaging commercial dealers when socially supplied product was unavailable. A handful sourced drugs exclusively through the commercial market. Some were home growers of cannabis, and a small number had drifted into social supply themselves. Conclusions: Social supply was seen in a far more favourable light than commercial transactions by our participants, and acted as an ideal against which all other acts of sourcing were compared. Moreover, social supply was often an integral facet of the drug using experience and served to validate and enhance that experience. The relatively benign, non-predatory nature of the social supply engaged in by the participants lends support to calls for some reform of the offence of supply in UK law

Testimonial Injustice and Vulnerability: A Qualitative Analysis of Participation in the Court of Protection

This article explores participation in Court of Protection (COP) proceedings by people considered vulnerable. The paper is based on original data obtained from observing COP proceedings and reviewing COP case files. It is argued that the observed absence of the subject of proceedings is a form of testimonial injustice, that is, a failure to value a person in their capacity as a giver of knowledge. The issue of competence to give evidence is considered but it is argued that it is not the formal evidential rules that prohibit a vulnerable adult from giving evidence. Instead, it is the result of a persistent assumption that they are inherently vulnerable and therefore lack credibility as a knowledge giver. This assumption results in the voices of vulnerable adults being routinely absent from legal proceedings. It is argued that having a voice in the courtroom is essential and has a number of intrinsic and instrumental benefits. The paper concludes with a discussion about the implications of the research, including the current trend towards the increased use of special measures, and recommends a presumption in favour of the subject of COP proceedings giving evidence

Observations of Infrared Radiative Cooling in the Thermosphere on Daily to Multiyear Timescales from the TIMED/SABER Instrument

We present observations of the infrared radiative cooling by carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO) in Earth s thermosphere. These data have been taken over a period of 7 years by the SABER instrument on the NASA TIMED satellite and are the dominant radiative cooling mechanisms for the thermosphere. From the SABER observations we derive vertical profiles of radiative cooling rates (W/cu m), radiative fluxes (W/sq m), and radiated power (W). In the period from January 2002 through January 2009 we observe a large decrease in the cooling rates, fluxes, and power consistent with the declining phase of solar cycle. The power radiated by NO during 2008 when the Sun exhibited few sunspots was nearly one order of magnitude smaller than the peak power observed shortly after the mission began. Substantial short-term variability in the infrared emissions is also observed throughout the entire mission duration. Radiative cooling rates and radiative fluxes from NO exhibit fundamentally different latitude dependence than do those from CO2, with the NO fluxes and cooling rates being largest at high latitudes and polar regions. The cooling rates are shown to be derived relatively independent of the collisional and radiative processes that drive the departure from local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) in the CO2 15 m and the NO 5.3 m vibration-rotation bands. The observed NO and CO2 cooling rates have been compiled into a separate dataset and represent a climate data record that is available for use in assessments of radiative cooling in upper atmosphere general circulation models