Substance-use disorders and psychological distress among police arrestees

Objectives: To determine the 12-month prevalence of substance-use disorders and psychological morbidity in an Australian arrestee population. Design: Cross-sectional descriptive study. Participants and setting: 288 police arrestees at the Brisbane City Police Watch House in February and March 2001. Outcome measures: Prevalence of drug and alcohol disorders; psychological caseness according to the 28-item General Health Questionnaire; demographics and index offences. Results: 86% of the arrestees had at least one substance-use disorder; most had multiple disorders. More than 80% were substance dependent. The predominant substances used were amphetamines, marijuana, opioids and alcohol. 82% of the men and 94% of the women were suffering significant psychological distress. Conclusions: Development of services for detoxification and treatment of this population is a pressing need. The findings provide crucial information for the planning and implementation of drug courts and court diversion systems.

Pathways to human experimentation, 1933-1945: Germany, Japan and the United States

The history of human experimentation in the twelve years between Hitler's rise to power and the end of the Second World War is notorious in the annals of the twen- tieth century. The horrific experiments conducted at Dachau, Auschwitz, Ravens- brueck, Birkenau, and other National Socialist concentration camps reflected an extreme indifference to human life and human suffering. Unfortunately, they do not reflect the extent and complexity of the human experiments undertaken in the years between 1933 and 1945. Following the prosecution of twenty-three high-ranking National Socialist physicians and medical administrators for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg Medical Trial (United States v. Karl Brandt et al.), scholars have rightly focused attention on the nightmarish researches con- ducted by a small group of investigators on concentration camp inmates. Less well known are alternative pathways that brought investigators to undertake human ex- perimentation in other laboratories, settings, and nations.

The psychometric properties of a psychosis screen in a correctional setting

Many people who go to gaol are mentally ill. Remandees, prisoner receptions or people in jails have a substantially higher rate of severe mental disorder than other prisoners and the general population. There are no completely satisfactory ways to screen for psychosis and few existing screening questionnaires are available for use in correctional establishments. The Screening Instrument for Psychosis (PS) was developed in the context of the Australian Mental Health Survey: Study of Low Prevalence Disorders. It can help indicate whether a person should be referred to mental health professional for a diagnostic evaluation and possible treatment and/or diversion. We trialled the PS in a high security remand and reception centre. Measures of validity and reliability are reported. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier Inc.