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People with intellectual disabilities who set fires are a heterogeneous and clinically complex group who present significant challenges to the wider community and to forensic practitioners working in forensic mental health and correctional settings. There is little available in the literature to support professionals when considering assessment and formulation for clients exhibiting these perturbing behaviours. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In this paper the materials available to assist forensic practitioners in considering assessment and formulation of people with intellectual disabilities who set fires are described and outlined.

An assessment scheme is proposed for organising information from a variety of sources to assist professionals in understanding the nature of risks and clinical needs of firesetters with intellectual disabilities. A newly revised risk assessment measure designed for this population is provided.

Forensic practitioners are provided with a framework and tools to assist with their assessment and formulation of firesetters with intellectual disabilities.

This is the first time a newly revised risk assessment for firesetting behaviour by people with intellectual disabilities has been presented.

Fire setters who have an intellectual disability (ID) are often identified as posing a particular danger to the community although relatively little is known about their characteristics, treatment and support needs. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This study describes the characteristics of 134 residents of low, medium and high security ID facilities in the UK who have either an index offence of arson, a violent index offence or a sexual index offence.

Index arson offenders who had an ID had multiple prior convictions, a history of violent offending and a high likelihood of having a comorbid mental disorder. There were many shared characteristics across the three groups.

The current study suggests that offenders who have ID who set fires have treatment needs that are similar to those of violent and sex offenders. It follows that fire setters who have an ID may also benefit from participating in more established offending behaviour treatment programs, such as cognitive behaviour therapy programs, developed for other types of offender.

This study is one of the few which has investigated the characteristics and treatment needs of persons who have an ID who set fires. In particular, it is one of the first to compare the characteristics and treatment needs for persons with ID who set fires, to those who have committed violent and sexual offences.

The purpose of this paper is to gather epidemiologicalinformation concerning firesetters with intellectual disabilities (ID) in Denmark to identify the assessment and treatment needs of this population and inform further research in this area.

The records held by the Danish Ministry of Justice concerning all firesetters with ID convicted of deliberate firesetting were reviewed for the period January 2001 to December 2010 inclusive. File information was extracted for 83 offenders concerning: demographic and personal characteristics; mental health characteristics; offending behaviour; offence-specific factors; and motives for offending. A sub-group of seven offenders were interviewed to explore some of the themes that emerged from the file review.

The majority of study participants were male and were classified as having mild ID and around 50 per cent had additional mental health problems. Many came from disturbed and deprived backgrounds. Two-thirds had set more than one fire and over 60 per cent had convictions for offences other than firesetting. Alcohol was involved in the firesetting behaviour in a significant proportion of cases (25 per cent). The motives for setting fires were – in descending order – communication (of anger, frustration and distress), fire fascination and vandalism. Interviews with participants indicated the important communicative function of firesetting, the difficulties people had in talking about and acknowledging their firesetting behaviour, and lack of access to targeted interventions.

Interventions for Danish firesetters with ID, as for firesetters with ID elsewhere, need to target the communicative function of this behaviour, along with offenders’ lack of insight and initial reluctance to accept responsibility for their behaviour and associated risks. Adjunctive treatment is required to address the psychiatric comorbidity experienced by many of these offenders, along with the alcohol use/misuse that is associated with many of these offences.

This is the first study concerning nature and needs of firesetters with ID in Denmark.

Building the Right Support, a national plan for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) in England aims to avoid lengthy stays in hospital for such people. Discharge planning is understood to be helpful in facilitating successful transition from hospital to community services, however, there is little guidance available to help those working with detained patients with ID and offending histories to consider how to affect safe and effective discharges. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this paper, the development and implementation of a multi-faceted and systemic approach to discharge preparation and planning is described. The impact of this intervention on a range of outcomes was assessed and the views of stakeholders on the process were sought.

Initial outcome data provide support for the effectiveness of this intervention in terms of increased rates of discharge, reduced lengths of stay and low readmission rates. Stakeholders viewed the intervention as positive and beneficial in achieving timely discharge and effective post-discharge support.

People with ID are more likely to be detained in hospital and spend more time in hospital following admission. A planned, coordinated and well managed approach to discharge planning can be helpful in facilitating timely and successful discharges with low risks of readmission.

This is the first attempt to describe and evaluate a discharge planning intervention for detained offenders with ID. The intervention described appears to be a promising approach but further evaluation across a range of service settings is required.

Over the last ten years, there has been greater interest in the diagnosis of personality disorder (PD) in people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). One important characteristic of a diagnostic system is that it should have validity as a contribution to utility. PD has been found to have a predictive relationship with violence and the purpose of this paper is to review two methods for the diagnosis of PD in offenders with IDD in order to evaluate the utility of the diagnoses.

In total, 212 offenders with ID were recruited from three settings – maximum-security, medium/low security and community services. Diagnoses of PD in the case files were compared with a structured system of diagnosis based on DSM-IV traits.

There were significant differences between the two systems with a significantly higher frequency of PD diagnosis in the community forensic setting in the structured assessment system. There was no relationship between the case files diagnosis of PD and future violence but there was a significant predictive relationship between the structured diagnosis of PD and future violence with an AUC=0.62.

As with all such studies, the research is limited by the quality of the case files available to the researchers.

Only the structured assessment of PD had utility for the prediction of violence. Reasons for the differences between the systems are discussed and suggestions made on how a diagnosis of PD can be structured for the busy clinician.

The accurate diagnosis of PD has important implications since the PD is a crucial addition to any violence risk evaluation.

This study is the first of its kind to review the way in which clinicians assess PD.

Political correctness, also known as “PC,” has generated much discussion on both the Right and the Left. The greatest debate comes from college campuses. Political correctness derives from the principle that ethnic diversity, i.e., multiculturalism, can and should be preserved and protected. Ironically, the term originated in the Marxist era, when it was used to enforce conformity in the advancement of a particular Marxist view. The term became obsolete until it was revived in the 1980s (D'Souza, 1991).

As the financial market experiences the consequences of nearing retail saturation together with an increasingly demanding consumer, financial concerns need to understand and react to their customers. The degree of rationalisation within the sector means players such as the Derbyshire Building Society must (a) maximise those capital assets which indicate potential and (b) develop effective and profitable new and existing outlets to strengthen their trading base. The development of an information environment which evolved from a close relationship between the Derbyshire Building Society and Market Profiles Ltd is described. The objective was to develop a quantifiable framework for strategic and tactical decision making, through the provision of a highly flexible and interactive PC‐based marketing information system capable of integration with a longer‐term mainframe solution. This was designed to make the Derbyshire more proactive in its marketing activity.