Forensic psychiatry is a unique specialty at the interface of medical and legal systems. Research in the field spans neuroscience, clinical trials, service evaluation and policy delivery, criminal justice system interventions, and all the way to ethics and philosophy. This wider spectrum of research has attracted many capable and productive researchers since the emergence of forensic psychiatry in the second half of the last century, and they have ably tackled some of the unique and challenging questions for our field. Yet we lag behind other psychiatric specialties when it comes to visibility, funding success, and global impact.
The reasons for this are manifold and complex (Tully et al, 2024). One though, is clear- we are not joined up enough in the research we do. There are many logistical hurdles to resolving this, but there is also a more philosophical barrier to overcome, at least in the UK. This is the tendency for individual forensic centres – geographically dispersed and physically cut-off – to become kingdoms unto themselves, focussing on research only about their own population or service. This thinking – though it is rarely if ever explicitly stated – is inherently flawed. At a basic level, it limits statistical power and generalisability. At a deeper level, it limits the capacity for rigour and innovation that is borne from collaborative efforts in pooling research talent and ideas.
In a renewed effort to break down these barriers to collaboration, our group, Forensic Research Nottingham at Institute of Mental Health/University of Nottingham, took the lead, alongside colleagues in Newcastle, to compile a list of active forensic research groups in the UK. Our main focus was on groups conducting at least some projects in clinical forensic populations. However, we also wanted to include groups doing research in related fields such as criminology, neuroscience, and broader criminal justice, which have a strong forensic component. We stipulated that groups would have a formal University link, as we believe this is important for the visibility, academic leadership, and administrative structures required to attract funding, particularly at a larger scale. But we also sought out nationwide groups including Crime in Mind, which act as useful platforms to co-ordinate and indeed deliver collaborative research.
Just as importantly as this list of information, we believed, was its illustration in the form of a map, which has been shown to have value in highlighting areas of strengths and weakness across regions or systems and for fostering collaboration through ‘network weaving’ (Apgar et al, 2023). Last November, the map was published on the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Forensic Faculty website, alongside further information in text form, and links to relevant webpages. We hope this is a useful and important first step towards increasing the visibility and profile of forensic mental health research. We also hope it will act as a stimulus to encourage emerging or smaller research groups to formalise their activity into integrated hubs with a clear mission and outward-looking approach to collaboration with other centres. The map and lists will be updated regularly, hopefully with the addition of new groups and networks.
We hope that others might pick up this mantle and take the lead on developing a more extensive international map, promoting research international collaborations. Here, I am urging national as well as international networking for research with adults.
I’m aware that Crime in Mind is already giving some support to an international research group in child and adolescent forensic mental health (GIRAF) https://cfmhas.org.uk/projects/group-of-international-researchers-in-adolescent-forensic-giraf/), which is a very useful development!
Please do get in contact if you wish to be involved in this wider endeavour.
John Tully
References:
Apgar, M., Fournie, G., Haesler, B., Higdon, G. L., Kenny, L., Oppel, A., … & Hossain, M. (2023). Revealing the relational mechanisms of research for development through social network analysis. The European Journal of Development Research, 35(2), 323.
Tully, J., Hafferty, J., Whiting, D., Dean, K., & Fazel, S. (2024). Forensic mental health: envisioning a more empirical future. The Lancet Psychiatry, 11(11), 934-942.
Research can transform lives. We want to support discoveries about what helps people with mental disorder who have been victims of criminal behaviour, or perpetrators of criminal behaviour, and their families, and the clinicians and others who treat them and, indeed, the wider community when its members are in contact with these problems. More effective prevention is the ideal, when this is not possible, we need more effective, evidenced interventions for recovery and restoration of safety.
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