Service-user and professional issues

A review of the current literature on service-user and professional issues revealed a distinctive pattern of concerns. Whilst these mainly have an origin in the wider world of disability, they have a relevance for forensic services. Advocacy, sexuality, abuse, offending, victimology, emergency management of behaviour, law, social exclusion, models of disability and research ethics dominated the literature. There was a paucity of work on professional development or service design, although this may have been an artefact resulting from the search methodology. In the view of the present author, the striking omissions were economics, the ethics of treatment and confidentiality, and the role of society in making decisions for those who cannot make decisions for themselves. The emphasis was on the 'libertarian' disability agenda and the more 'paternalistic' concerns of forensic services were somewhat neglected.