The Law and Mental Health (LAMH)
division of the Complex Mental Illness Program provides comprehensive
care and services for people with serious mental illness who have come
into contact with the law. LAMH clients are placed under the
jurisdiction of the Ontario Review Board (ORB) because they have been
found not criminally responsible for their offense, or they have been
deemed unfit to stand trial, on the account of having a serious mental
illness.
Our primary clinical goals are to maximize
rehabilitation and recovery for individuals under our care, while
maintaining the safety of the community at large by helping to reduce
and manage risk for violence
Our primary clinical goals are to
maximize rehabilitation and recovery for individuals under our care,
while maintaining the safety of the community at large by helping to
reduce and manage risk for violence.
Another major research area in our program involves studying sexology and takes place within the research arm of the Sexual Behaviours Clinic.
Current Projects
Assessment and management of risk
- Dynamic and static risk factors predicting violence, victimization and re-hospitalization among forensic clients
- Understanding what predicts absconding behaviour in forensic clients
- Motivational influences underlying offending behaviour of individuals found not criminally responsible due to mental disorder
- Field study examining the inter-rater reliability of the
Historical-Clinical-Risk Managament-20 (HCR-20) risk assessment tool
between LAMHP staff
- The predictive validity of the Historical-Clinical-Risk
Management-Version 3 (HCR-V3) and Classification of Violence Risk (COVR)
in assessing risk for violence
- Investigating the Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression
(DASA-IV): Predictive validity and associations with staff knowledge in
managing aggression
- Factors associated with committing matricide
- Characteristics of incarcerated veterans in provincial correctional facilities
- A PET study examining monoamine oxidase A levels in aggressive and
impulsive individuals with antisocial personality disorder or borderline
personality disorder
Recovery and rehabilitation of forensic clients
- Staff and client perceptions of LAMHP services, including degree of alignment with the recovery model
- Exploring the LAMHP population: Who are they and what works to reduce risk and enhance the recovery process?
- Community forensic services in Ontario: Who is served and it what way?
- Assessment of client needs using the Camberwell Assessment of
Need-Forensic Version (CANFOR): How does our program meet client needs?
- The recovery model at LAMHP: Exploring patient processes, program milieu and the assessment of risk using recovery principles
Systems-level forensic trends
- The causes and consequences of increasing forensic numbers in Ontario: towards implementing changes to contain this rise
- Examining rates of homicide perpetrated by mentally ill offenders over a twenty-year period in Ontario
- The epidemiological relationship between prison and psychiatric hospital beds: Laying Penrose to rest
- Community patterns of mental illness, substance use, violence and interactions with the health and criminal justice system
- Patterns of serious mental illness in prisons
Researchers