Custody Care Criminality

In this fundamentally important work, Professor Brendan Kelly explores the background to Irish psychiatry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, charting its progress and development. Using detailed case studies from the original records, the author examines some of the more unusual treatments explored and the history behind them. What emerges is a collection of piercing, untold stories of crime and illness, drama and tragedy. They are filled with a sense of the powerlessness of those detained and the dedicated – and sometimes misguided – enthusiasm of those trying to help. This book sheds important light on the foundations for the treatment of mental illness in Ireland.

Society holds a mistaken perception that links children in public care with criminal activity. This book addresses the lack of evidence supporting this potentially damaging assumption, analysing past research, critically examining current policy and combining theoretical insights from the disciplines of childcare and criminology.

Despite their very different histories, societies, political and legal systems, Russia and the UK stand out as favouring a punitive approach to young law breakers, imprisoning many more children than any other European countries. The book is based on the author's primary research in Russia in which she visited a dozen closed institutions from St Petersburg to Krasnoyarsk and on similar research in England and Northern Ireland. The result is a unique study of how attitudes to youth crime and criminal justice, the political environment and the relationship between state and society have interacted to influence the treatment of young offenders. McAuley's account of the twists and turns in policy towards youth illuminate the extraordinary history of Russia in the twentieth century and the making of social policy in Russia today. It is also the first study to compare the UK (excluding Scotland because of its separate juvenile justice system) with Russia, a comparison which highlights the factors responsible for the making of 'punitive' policy in the two societies. McAuley places the Russian and UK policies in a European context, aiming to reveal how other European countries manage to put so many fewer children behind bars.

Young offenders given custodial sentences in youth institutions constitute an important group in the context of crime prevention research, given that offenders within this group are at high risk of reoffending or continuing with a criminal career into adulthood. This book explores the significance of custodial openness for children and youths and how this environment affects future desistance from crime. In Young Offenders and Open Custody Tove Pettersson provides powerful support for the view that the experience of more open custodial forms during the youth custody sentence is of significance both for providing incarcerated youths with a more humane environment and for the likelihood of a positive outcome following their release. Building upon detailed interviews with convicted youths and staff at the special approved homes in Sweden, this book offers unique insights into the effect of punishment on young offenders and their understanding of social control. Drawing upon quantitative and qualitative data, this book examines levels of reoffending over time among youths sentenced to custody, and considers the impact of open sentences. This book will be useful reading for students and researchers engaged in youth and juvenile justice, juvenile delinquency, and sentencing and punishment.

The first historical study to offer an in-depth exploration of the complex relationship between the prison and mental breakdown.

Find out how 12 World War II babies created a unified understanding on the development and prevention of human violence.

In recent years there has been growing concern and controversy surrounding the care and treatment of mentally disordered offenders. Consequently, there have been a series of legislative and policy developments during the last decade, which have led to changes in attitude and the way that suchoffender-patients are treated. Such changes have focused primarily upon timely therapeutic intervention and diversion from the criminal justice system. Care or Custody?: Mentally Disordered Offenders in the Criminal Justice System considers these issues in depth. It is a comprehensive and scholarly text which identifies some of the practical difficulties that occur when mentally disordered offenders come into contact with the criminal justicesystem. The law in this area is complex and this book will enable professionals involved in the subject to gain a better understanding of the law and policy with regard to mentally disordered offenders. Judith Laing also analyses and addresses some of the theoretical issues and concerns surrounding the treatment and detention of mentally disordered offenders. The book will therefore assist and inform legal, mental health, and related practitioners working in this field, and will also provide atheoretical overview of the law for academics and students.

Hearing Voices: The History of Psychiatry in Ireland is a monumental work by one of Ireland’s leading psychiatrists, encompassing every psychiatric development from the Middle Ages to the present day, and examining the far-reaching social and political effects of Ireland’s troubled relationship with mental illness. From the “Glen of Lunatics”, said to cure the mentally ill, to the overcrowded asylums of later centuries – with more beds for the mentally ill than any other country in the world – Ireland has a complex, unsettled history in the practice of psychiatry. Kelly’s definitive work examines Ireland’s unique relationship with conceptions of mental ill health throughout the centuries, delving into each medical breakthrough and every misuse of authority – both political and domestic – for those deemed to be mentally ill. Through fascinating archival records, Kelly writes a crisp and accessible history, evaluating everything from individual case histories to the seismic effects of the First World War, and exploring the attitudes that guided treatments, spanning Brehon Law to the emerging emphasis on human rights. Hearing Voices is a marvel that affords incredible insight into Ireland’s social and medical history while providing powerful observations on our current treatment of mental ill health in Ireland.