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The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of officers/civilians with dyslexia serving in the police service in England and Wales. Although there has been a growing body of research which has analysed the experiences of offenders and victims with dyslexia, there have been few studies focusing on the experiences of police officers/civilians with this condition. This study employs the social model of disability to conceptualise the experiences of these police officers/civilians from a disability rights perspective.

This applies a quantitative methodology to analyse data on disabling environments experienced by officers/civilians serving in a police service situated in the North of England. The paper collected data from 56 police employees previously diagnosed with dyslexia.

The findings reveal that a significant number of officers were reluctant to disclose that they had dyslexia to their police service. The choice to disclose was a key concern for officers/civilians, as this was directly linked to their experiences of stigmatisation, as well as the risk of their competences being questioned at work. The analysis presents evidence that, although officers/civilians have legal protections under the Equality Act 2010 (c15) in the UK, very few had experienced any form of “reasonable adjustment” in the workplace.

Drawing on the social model of disability, the paper concludes that the police service must improve access to reasonable adjustment, for example, through the use of assistive technologies, to create a more inclusive and supportive working environment for their employees.

This paper aims to conceptualise the residential and psychiatric hospital as a space where criminality and social harms can emerge. Because of recent media scandals over the past 10 years concerning privately-owned hospitals, this study examines the lived experiences of service users/survivors, family members and practitioners to examine historic and contemporary encounters of distress and violence in hospital settings.

The study consists of 16 biographical accounts exploring issues of dehumanising and harmful practices, such as practices of restraint and rituals of coercive violence. A biographical methodology has been used to analyse the life stories of service users/survivors (n = 9), family members (n = 3) and professional health-care employees (n = 4). Service users/survivors in this study have experienced over 40 years of short-term and long-term periods of hospitalisation.

The study discovered that institutional forms of violence had changed after the deinstitutionalisation of care. Practitioners recalled comprehensive experiences of violence within historic mental hospitals, although violence that may be considered criminal appeared to disappear from hospitals after the Mental Health Act (1983). These reports of criminal violence and coercive abuse appeared to be replaced with dehumanising and harmful procedures, such as practices of restraint.

The data findings offer a unique interpretation, both historical and contemporary, of dehumanising psychiatric rituals experienced by service users/survivors, which are relevant to criminology and MAD studies. The study concludes by challenging oppressive psychiatric “harms” to promote social justice for service users/survivors currently being “treated” within the contemporary psychiatric system. The study intends to conceptualise residential and psychiatric hospitals as a space where criminality and social harms can emerge. The three aims of the study examined risk factors concerning criminality and social harms, oppressive and harmful practices within hospitals and evidence that violence occurs within these institutionalised settings. The study discovered that institutional forms of violence had changed after the deinstitutionalisation of care. These reports of violence include dehumanising attitudes, practices of restraint and coercive abuse.

The aim of this study is to understand how social barriers might result in people with specific learning difficulties coming in contact with the criminal justice system in the UK. The study seeks to apply the social model of disability to conceptualise a statistical relationship between socio‐economic status and key life events for people with specific learning difficulties (i.e. diagnosis, educational achievements, and employment).

A cluster sample was used to obtain statistical data from a questionnaire based survey. The study collected quantitative and qualitative data on the life experiences of people with specific learning difficulties (n=77). The paper analyses the quantitative data and discovers statistically significant relationships (p≤0.05) concerning socio‐economic status, specific learning difficulties and crime.

Within the data findings age of diagnosis is significantly (p≤0.00) affected when comparing socio‐economic status with the offender and non‐offender group in the study. Furthermore, the educational achievements (p≤0.00) and employment/unemployment levels (p≤0.00) are dramatically altered by socio‐economic status specifically for offenders with specific learning difficulties. These relationships have been conceptualised using the social model of SpLD in terms of barriers to exclusion.

To date very few studies have used the social model of disability to understand pathways into offending for people with learning difficulties. To the author's knowledge this is the first study to apply a quantitative analysis to the concept of disabling barriers and criminality.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of developing the early brain and biological development and addictions podcast series for first and second year medical students. This paper also presents the findings from an evaluation of the introductory podcast in this series of 13 podcasts.

Three focus groups were held with a total of 19 participants representing ten universities across Canada as well as one college and one foundation. Each focus group was audiotaped and then transcribed verbatim. The coding process consisted of grouping the common codes together to form themes based on the W(e)Learn framework.

Findings suggested that most participants were enthusiastic regarding the potential of the podcast project not only for the intended audience but also for all medical students and residents as well as continuous healthcare education. However, findings also suggest that other participants were not as fervent about the potential of the program. Many participants provided suggestions for how to further improve the podcast. These suggestions have already been implemented into the program design in an attempt to meet end-users' needs and expectations.

This research shares an innovative approach to supporting healthcare education in undergraduate education. Podcasting has become a cost-effective and convenient pedagogical tool for distributing educational information. Podcasts are effective teaching tools since listening is an active, engaging and creative process on interpreting content and creating meaning from auditory cues.

The purpose of this chapter is to question the degree and the nature of legitimacy and force held by private security, and how this can affect the role private actors are playing in the field of policing and in the governance of security.

We draw mainly on existing academic literature on private policing, as well as our own qualitative research conducted in Canada.

If private security personnel have undeniably less legitimacy and force than their public counterpart, two nuances should be brought: (1) there is a tendency toward a shrinking of the gap between both sectors; and (2) these shortcomings do not represent such a problem, considering that, first, private security actors are usually given specific legal powers (e.g., the landlord’s), and, second, they do not rely on legitimacy as much as the police do in order to do their job. That being said, as private security officers and companies are likely to become increasingly involved in traditional police functions (most notably patrolling the public space), their lack of legitimacy and legal powers could significantly impede their actions in the future.

This chapter brings nuances to the supposed lack of force and legitimacy that plague the private security industry. It also sheds light on some of the inner rationales that characterize the dynamics within public and private policing.