In January 2023, FCRG deputy, Dr Lauren Smith, published an invited article entitled “The role of probation in supporting people who have experienced gambling and crime-related harms” for a special issue of Probation Quarterly.
Lauren provides a summary of key findings from a report published by The Howard League entitled ‘”Surviving, not living”: The lived experiences of crime and gambling’ (Smith, 2022), which involved semi-structured interviews with 22 people, 18 of whom were people who had committed crime as a result of gambling. Key areas uncovered include the need to ask specific gambling-related question pre-sentence, highlighting an disordered gambling in pre-sentence reports, and improved training for probation staff.
If you wish to read the article, you can download it here.
Smith, L. (2021). The role of probation in supporting people who have experienced gambling and crime-related harms. Probation Quarterly, 26, 45-49. https://doi.org/10.54006/QPRS9599
The British Board of Film Classification has published their work on non-photographic images of child sexual abuse, which includes a commissioned report by FCRG member Dr Hannah Merdian and the onlinePROTECT team.
The work has been endorsed by the Internet Watch Foundation, Barnardo’s, Childnet, and NSPCC.
FCRG member, Dr Tochukwu Onwuegbusi, presented at the Science and Psychology Conference 2022 in London (29th Nov) and Bristol (30th Nov). His talk was titled: “Crime – How do we solveit?” where he described the application of a novel eye-tracking method that can be used to aid police crime investigation, particularly in suspect identification. Tochs presented data suggesting that fixation patterns may be repeated during the recognition of familiar scenes. Thus, tracking eye fixations could give insight as to whether the suspect under police interrogation is lying about having memory of the crime scene.
In October 2022, FCRG lead (Dr Ross Bartels) attended and presented at the 41st Annual Conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abuse (ATAS) in Los Angles, USA.
Ross gave a talk entitled “The Effect of Bilateral Eye-Movements on Sexual Fantasies” as part of a larger symposium titled “Can EMDR Be Helpful in the Treatment of Sexual SelfRegulation?” (chaired by Wineke Smid).
The talk (and session overall) was very well received, generating interesting discussion and interest in Ross’ work (which he is currently following up).
In November 2022, FCRG Deputy, Lauren Smith (lead author) and colleagues published a new paper entitled “Gambling and crime: An exploration of gambling availability and culture in an English prison” in Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health journal.
In this study, 282 male volunteers in a Category B male prison in England completed a questionnaire which included the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI). The findings add to existing literature by identifying high rates of gambling in prison and showing that prisoners’ perceptions of gambling are as a normal part of prison life. They also suggest that screening and support should be available to manage gambling in prison, including support to reduce gambling-related debt, particularly given associations between debt and violence in prison. Relief from boredom and need for excitement were among the most common reasons for gambling in prison, indicating that there is a need to provide a more appropriately stimulating prison environment.
