Previous research has suggested that the core features of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may contribute to offending behaviours and increased vulnerability within the Criminal Justice System. To date, there is a paucity of evidence assessing the effectiveness of interventions for offending behaviour in adults with ASD but without co-occurring intellectual disability (ID) across a broad range of forensic settings. The lack of robust evidence is concerning, as limited effectiveness may contribute to an increased likelihood of prolonged incarceration, particularly in the most restrictive settings. A PRISMA systematic review was conducted with a narrative synthesis to: (a) evaluate the evidence of the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing recidivism, (b) assess whether the core features of ASD impact the effectiveness of these interventions, and (c) identify additional factors that may affect the effectiveness of interventions within this population. Seven studies involving ten male participants were identified. The findings suggest that interventions for offending behaviours in adults with ASD without intellectual disability (ID) are largely inadequate, and that core ASD features need to be considered. Additionally, a complex interplay of risk factors potentially impacting intervention effectiveness was suggested. Limitations include heterogeneity across intervention types, measures of effectiveness, and what constitutes effectiveness. Despite the limited number of studies and data quality, the review aligns with a growing body of literature highlighting vulnerability and a need for evidence-based interventions for people with ASD. The review also discusses the broader implications of ineffective interventions.

Technology-facilitated sexual abuse refers to the use of information and communication technologies to facilitate both virtual and in-person sexual crimes. Research on this topic has focused on rates, risk factors, and consequences. This scoping review aims to understand whether and how forensic psychological procedures are adapted to assess adolescent victims and how Internet-based information might be useful as complementary data. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extensions for Scoping Reviews guidelines, searches were conducted in April 2023 in five electronic databases to include Portuguese, Spanish, or English quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method peer-reviewed studies. Of the 2523 studies, six were considered eligible. Identified procedures include forensic interviews following the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development Protocol, and risk and trauma assessments. While discussing technology\'s role in abuse during interviews was informative, confronting adolescents with evidence of their abuse had adverse effects on their testimony and recovery. The assessment tools often had a narrow focus or overlooked the abuse unless explicitly disclosed, implied a referral, or when safeguarding concerns were raised. Clinical, forensic, and criminal implications are elaborated.

As Forensic Psychology continues to expand as an independent field, professionals regularly resort to psychological assessment tools to assess people involved within the justice system. The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) is a 344-item, self-report inventory that aims to provide meaningful information for diagnosis and clinical decision-making, specifically relating to psychopathology, personality, and psychosocial environment. Its applicability in forensic settings has been increasingly recognized on account of its benefits in comparison to other self-report inventories (e.g., MMPI-2, MCMI-III), since it includes scales that are relevant to forensic settings (e.g., violence risk levels, psychopathy, substance abuse), and the existence of profile distortion indicators is useful when dealing with highly defensive and/or malingering populations. The goal of this paper is to conduct a thorough review of the PAI\'s utility in forensic settings, by focusing on the relevant forensic constructs assessed by the PAI (e.g., personality disorders, psychosis, substance abuse, aggression, recidivism risk, and response distortion), as well as its application to offender and inmate populations, intimate partner violence contexts, family law cases, and forensic professionals. Overall, the PAI continues to gather international recognition and its relevance and usefulness in forensic settings is generally accepted and acknowledged.

UNASSIGNED: Containment (e.g. physical restraint and seclusion) is used frequently in mental health inpatient settings. Containment is associated with serious psychological and physical harms. De-escalation (psychosocial techniques to manage distress without containment) is recommended to manage aggression and other unsafe behaviours, for example self-harm. All National Health Service staff are trained in de-escalation but there is little to no evidence supporting training\'s effectiveness.
UNASSIGNED: Objectives were to: (1) qualitatively investigate de-escalation and identify barriers and facilitators to use across the range of adult acute and forensic mental health inpatient settings; (2) co-produce with relevant stakeholders an intervention to enhance de-escalation across these settings; (3) evaluate the intervention\'s preliminary effect on rates of conflict (e.g. violence, self-harm) and containment (e.g. seclusion and physical restraint) and understand barriers and facilitators to intervention effects.
UNASSIGNED: Intervention development informed by Experience-based Co-design and uncontrolled pre and post feasibility evaluation. Systematic reviews and qualitative interviews investigated contextual variation in use and effects of de-escalation. Synthesis of this evidence informed co-design of an intervention to enhance de-escalation. An uncontrolled feasibility trial of the intervention followed. Clinical outcome data were collected over 24 weeks including an 8-week pre-intervention phase, an 8-week embedding and an 8-week post-intervention phase.
UNASSIGNED: Ten inpatient wards (including acute, psychiatric intensive care, low, medium and high secure forensic) in two United Kingdom mental health trusts.
UNASSIGNED: In-patients, clinical staff, managers, carers/relatives and training staff in the target settings.
UNASSIGNED: Enhancing de-escalation techniques in adult acute and forensic units: Development and evaluation of an evidence-based training intervention (EDITION) interventions included de-escalation training, two novel models of reflective practice, post-incident debriefing and feedback on clinical practice, collaborative prescribing and ward rounds, practice changes around admission, shift handovers and the social and physical environment, and sensory modulation and support planning to reduce patient distress.
UNASSIGNED: Outcomes measured related to feasibility (recruitment and retention, completion of outcome measures), training outcomes and clinical and safety outcomes. Conflict and containment rates were measured via the Patient-Staff Conflict Checklist. Clinical outcomes were measured using the Attitudes to Containment Measures Questionnaire, Attitudes to Personality Disorder Questionnaire, Violence Prevention Climate Scale, Capabilities, Opportunities, and Motivation Scale, Coercion Experience Scale and Perceived Expressed Emotion in Staff Scale.
UNASSIGNED: Completion rates of the proposed primary outcome were very good at 68% overall (excluding remote data collection), which increased to 76% (excluding remote data collection) in the post-intervention period. Secondary outcomes had high completion rates for both staff and patient respondents. Regression analyses indicated that reductions in conflict and containment were both predicted by study phase (pre, embedding, post intervention). There were no adverse events or serious adverse events related to the intervention.
UNASSIGNED: Intervention and data-collection procedures were feasible, and there was a signal of an effect on the proposed primary outcome.
UNASSIGNED: Uncontrolled design and self-selecting sample.
UNASSIGNED: Definitive trial determining intervention effects.
UNASSIGNED: This trial is registered as ISRCTN12826685 (closed to recruitment).
UNASSIGNED: This award was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme (NIHR award ref: 16/101/02) and is published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 28, No. 3. See the NIHR Funding and Awards website for further award information.
UNASSIGNED: Conflict (a term used to describe a range of potentially unsafe events including violence, self-harm, rule-breaking, medication refusal, illicit drug and alcohol use and absconding) in mental health settings causes serious physical and psychological harm. Containment interventions which are intended to minimise harm from violence (and other conflict behaviours) such as restraint, seclusion and rapid tranquilisation can result in serious injuries to patients and, occasionally, death. Involvement in physical restraint is the most common cause of serious physical injury to National Health Service mental health staff in the United Kingdom. Violence to staff results in substantial costs to the health service in sickness and litigation payments. Containment interventions are also expensive (e.g. physical restraint costs mental health services £6.1 million and enhanced observations £88 million per annum). Despite these harms, recent findings indicate containment interventions such as seclusion and physical restraint continue to be used frequently in mental health settings. Clinical trials have demonstrated that interventions can reduce containment without increasing violence and other conflict behaviours (e.g. verbal aggression, self-harm). Substantial cost-savings result from reducing containment use. De-escalation, as an intervention to manage aggression and potential violence without restrictive practices, is a core intervention. \'De-escalation\' is a collective term for a range of psychosocial techniques designed to reduce distress and anger without the need to use \'containment\' interventions (measures to prevent harm through restricting a person\'s ability to act independently, such as physical restraint and seclusion). Evidence indicates that de-escalation involves ensuring conditions for safe intervention and effective communication are established, clarifying and attempting to resolve the patient\'s concern, conveyance of respect and empathy and regulating unhelpful emotions such as anxiety and anger. Despite featuring prominently in clinical guidelines and training policy domestically and internationally and being a component of mandatory National Health Service training, there is no evidence-based model on which to base training. A systematic review of de-escalation training effectiveness and acceptability conducted in 2015 concluded: (1) no model of training has demonstrated effectiveness in a sufficiently rigorous evaluation, (2) the theoretical underpinning of evaluated models was often unclear and (3) there has been inadequate investigation of the characteristics of training likely to enhance acceptability and uptake. Despite all National Health Service staff being trained in de-escalation there have been no high-quality trials evaluating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of training. Feasibility studies are needed to establish whether it is possible to conduct a definitive trial that can determine the clinical, safety and cost-effectiveness of this intervention.
Mental health hospitals are stressful places for patients and staff. Patients are often detained against their will, in places that are noisy, unfamiliar and frightening. Violence and self-injury happen quite frequently. Sometimes staff physically restrain patients or isolate patients in locked rooms (called seclusion). While these measures might sometimes be necessary to maintain safety, they are psychologically and physically harmful. To help reduce the use of these unsafe measures, staff are trained in communication skills designed to reduce anger and distress without using physical force. Professionals call these skills ‘de-escalation’. Although training in de-escalation is mandatory, there is no good evidence to say whether it works or not, or what specific techniques staff should be trained in. The Enhancing de-escalation techniques in adult acute and forensic units: Development and evaluation of an evidence-based training intervention (EDITION) project aimed to develop and evaluate a de-escalation training programme informed by research evidence. We interviewed over one hundred people who either worked in or received treatment in a mental health hospital. These people were clear that the training should target key sources of interpersonal and environmental stress that prevent de-escalation from working. We also reviewed all the scientific studies on de-escalation and training, aiming to identify the elements of training that are most likely to increase use of de-escalation. Then, in partnership with current mental health service users and clinical staff, we developed the training programme. Training was delivered to more than 270 staff working in 10 different wards in mental health hospitals. We measured rates of violence, self-injury and use of physical restraint and seclusion 8 weeks before staff received training and 16 weeks after they received training (24 weeks of data collection in total). Analysis of these data showed that these unsafe events were occurring significantly less frequently after training than they were before training, which raised the possibility that the training was helping to reduce harm.

The lead article in this issue of Law and Human Behavior is \"Policy and Procedure Recommendations for the Collection and Preservation of Eyewitness Identification Evidence\" by Gary Wells and colleagues (2020). This special article is an official Scientific Review Paper (SRP) of the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS), Division 41 of the American Psychological Association (APA). This SRP is the product of an extensive, multistep vetting process designed to ensure that it represents the best research, analysis, and recommendations the AP-LS can provide. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

This issue of Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session focuses on the nature and consequences of psychotherapy clients\' disclosures, secrets, and dishonesty, with a particular emphasis on the ways in which therapists can best facilitate greater and more honest disclosure. This introduction to this issue reviews the growing theoretical and empirical literature on the frequency, types, motives, and consequences of client and therapist dishonesty (broadly defined); it also reviews the contributions within this issue, noting the welcome focus of the majority of these papers on the nature of client dishonesty in specific disorders (e.g., eating disorders; substance abuse) and/or specific clinical settings (e.g., prisons). Taken together, these papers speak to the ways that therapists may tailor their clinical interventions to match the specific ways that dishonesty manifests in different clinical populations.

In recent years, a number of studies have demonstrated that forensic examiners can be biased by task-irrelevant contextual information. However, concerns relating to methodological flaws and ecological validity attenuate how much the current body of knowledge can be applied to real-life operational settings. The current review takes a narrative approach to synthesizing the literature across forensic science. Further, the review considers three main issues: (i) primary research on contextual bias within forensic science; (ii) methodological criticisms of this research; (iii) an alternative perspective that task-irrelevant contextual information does not always lead to error. One suggestion for future research is outlined, which is that studies on contextual bias in forensic decisions should be conducted in collaboration between forensic scientists and cognitive psychologists. Only then can rigorous and ecological valid experiments be created that will be able to assess how task-irrelevant contextual information influences forensic analysis and judgments in operationally valid settings.

Consistent with community psychology\'s focus on addressing societal problems by accurately and comprehensively capturing individuals\' relationships in broader contexts, participatory research approaches aim to incorporate individuals\' voices and knowledge into understanding, and responding to challenges and opportunities facing them and their communities. Although investigators in psychology have engaged in participatory research, overall, these approaches have been underutilized. The purpose of this review was to examine areas of research focus that have included participatory research methods and, in turn, highlight the strengths and ways that such methods could be better used by researchers. Nearly 750 articles about research with Indigenous Peoples, children/adolescents, forensic populations, people with HIV/AIDS, older adults, and in the area of industrial-organizational psychology were coded for their use of participatory research principles across all research stages (i.e., research design, participant recruitment and data collection, analysis and interpretation of results, and dissemination). Although we found few examples of studies that were fully committed to participatory approaches to research, and notable challenges with applying and reporting on this type of work, many investigators have developed creative ways to engage respectfully and reciprocally with participants. Based on our findings, recommendations and suggestions for researchers are discussed.

Experiential peers are increasingly involved in the development and delivery of interventions for individuals who are engaged in delinquent behavior. Experiential peer support, which is the provision of support to an individual engaged in delinquent behavior by someone who has previously also practiced such behavior, is one such application. Little is known, however, about its effects on desistance, or the mechanisms that explain these effects. On the basis of theoretical papers, program descriptions, and interviews with experts, we developed an initial program theory. We propose seven mechanisms that might play a role in the (potential) effects of support by experiential peers: (1) empathy and acceptance, (2) social learning, (3) social bonding, (4) social control, (5) narrative and identity formation, (6) hope and perspective, and (7) translation and connection. In addition, in this protocol paper, we describe the methods of a systematic realist literature review that will be conducted in order to investigate the evidence base for this program theory.
The study described in this protocol paper is a realist review, which is a suitable approach to study complex interventions and fits the explanatory purpose of the study. We outline the steps to be taken for the systematic realist review, including the selection and assessment of studies and the methods for synthesizing the findings.
Investigating the effects and the underlying mechanisms of support by experiential peers for individuals with delinquent behavior is relevant because the forensic setting has some unique features, and the involvement of service users might create even more tension than in other settings due to stigma and perceived risks. The findings that will be reported in the realist review will contribute to the knowledge of the effects of support by experiential peers and will provide insight into which aspects remain to be studied. It might also provide formal care institutions with guidance on whether to involve experiential peers in the delivery of their services and the conditions under which these interventions are likely to lead to positive results.

This review of sleep-related violence reports the nature of the underlying sleep-suspected conditions enountered and helps establish the spectrum of sleep-related behaviors resulting in forensic consequences. This information may begin to bridge the gap between the differing medical and legal concepts of automatisms (complex motor behaviors occurring in the absence of conscious awareness and therefore without culpability). Sleep medicine professionals are increasingly asked by legal professionals whether a sleep-related condition could have played a role in a forensic-related event. Inasmuch as sleep medicine is a relatively young field, there is scant information to address these questions. The three most prevalent criminal allegations of the 351 consecutive possible sleep forensic-related referrals to a single sleep medicine center over the past 11 years were sexual assault, homicide/manslaughter or attempted murder, and driving under the influence. The overwhelming possible sleep disorder implicated was sexsomnia, accounting for 41%, or 145 out of 351 cases. Of the 351 referrals, 111 were accepted following thorough case review. In general, cases not accepted were declined on the basis of little or no merit or contamination by alcohol intoxication. Of those cases accepted, the proposed initial claim that a sleep phenomenon was operant was supported in approximately 50%, which were mostly non-rapid eye movement disorders of arousal. No cases were felt to be due to rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder.