Meeting the Challenge of Research while Treating Mentally Disordered Offenders: The Future of the Clinical Researcher

Abstract

Forensic mental health services must be theoretically driven and subject to sound research evaluation if they are to be maximally effective. People who are trained in both clinical and research skills are ideally placed to ensure this, but now the clinician researcher is often under threat, regardless of clinical subject, professional discipline, or even country of residence. Although size is not the only factor, smaller fields, of which forensic mental health is one, tend to be particularly vulnerable. Funding appears to be disproportionately scarce for research into the difficulties and management of offenders who have a mental disorder, with some avenues, such as dedicated charitable funding, absent altogether. A range of the challenges and some possible solutions are considered with particular reference to Germany, Sweden, and the UK. It is as vital to good clinical practice as to the future of research to have the means to attract young scientists into the field.

The authors are grateful to many colleagues in clinical and academic practice in the forensic mental health field for their readiness to supply information and discuss difficulties and solutions with us, but most particularly to Dr. Lindsay Thomson, Reader in Forensic Psychiatry at Edinburgh University and Chairman of the Forensic Psychiatry Research Society, Dr. John O'Grady, Chairman of the Forensic Faculty of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and Dr. Julian Walker, Consultant Forensic Clinical Psychologist, Fromeside Clinic Avon and Wiltshire NHS Trust and Bristol University.