Domestic violence events involving autism: a text mining study of police records in New South Wales, 2005-2016

2020 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 101634
Author(s):  
Ye In Hwang ◽  
Lidan Zheng ◽  
George Karystianis ◽  
Vicki Gibbs ◽  
Kym Sharp ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Text Mining ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Police Records

scholarly journals Prevalence of Mental Illnesses in Domestic Violence Police Records: Text Mining Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Karystianis ◽  
Annabeth Simpson ◽  
Armita Adily ◽  
Peter Schofield ◽  
David Greenberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Text Mining ◽  
New South ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Free Text ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Police Records ◽  
Health Justice ◽  
Improve Health

BACKGROUND The New South Wales Police Force (NSWPF) records details of significant numbers of domestic violence (DV) events they attend each year as both structured quantitative data and unstructured free text. Accessing information contained in the free text such as the victim’s and persons of interest (POI's) mental health status could be useful in the better management of DV events attended by the police and thus improve health, justice, and social outcomes. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to present the prevalence of extracted mental illness mentions for POIs and victims in police-recorded DV events. METHODS We applied a knowledge-driven text mining method to recognize mental illness mentions for victims and POIs from police-recorded DV events. RESULTS In 416,441 police-recorded DV events with single POIs and single victims, we identified 64,587 events (15.51%) with at least one mental illness mention versus 4295 (1.03%) recorded in the structured fixed fields. Two-thirds (67,582/85,880, 78.69%) of mental illnesses were associated with POIs versus 21.30% (18,298/85,880) with victims; depression was the most common condition in both victims (2822/12,589, 22.42%) and POIs (7496/39,269, 19.01%). Mental illnesses were most common among POIs aged 0-14 years (623/1612, 38.65%) and in victims aged over 65 years (1227/22,873, 5.36%). CONCLUSIONS A wealth of mental illness information exists within police-recorded DV events that can be extracted using text mining. The results showed mood-related illnesses were the most common in both victims and POIs. Further investigation is required to determine the reliability of the mental illness mentions against sources of diagnostic information.

scholarly journals Automatic Extraction of Mental Health Disorders From Domestic Violence Police Narratives: Text Mining Study (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Karystianis ◽  
Armita Adily ◽  
Peter Schofield ◽  
Lee Knight ◽  
Clara Galdon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Text Mining ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Mental Health Disorders ◽  
Free Text ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Health Disorders

BACKGROUND Vast numbers of domestic violence (DV) incidents are attended by the New South Wales Police Force each year in New South Wales and recorded as both structured quantitative data and unstructured free text in the WebCOPS (Web-based interface for the Computerised Operational Policing System) database regarding the details of the incident, the victim, and person of interest (POI). Although the structured data are used for reporting purposes, the free text remains untapped for DV reporting and surveillance purposes. OBJECTIVE In this paper, we explore whether text mining can automatically identify mental health disorders from this unstructured text. METHODS We used a training set of 200 DV recorded events to design a knowledge-driven approach based on lexical patterns in text suggesting mental health disorders for POIs and victims. RESULTS The precision returned from an evaluation set of 100 DV events was 97.5% and 87.1% for mental health disorders related to POIs and victims, respectively. After applying our approach to a large-scale corpus of almost a half million DV events, we identified 77,995 events (15.83%) that mentioned mental health disorders, with 76.96% (60,032/77,995) of those linked to POIs versus 16.47% (12,852/77,995) for the victims and 6.55% (5111/77,995) for both. Depression was the most common mental health disorder mentioned in both victims (22.30%, 3258) and POIs (18.73%, 8918), followed by alcohol abuse for POIs (12.24%, 5829) and various anxiety disorders (eg, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder) for victims (11.43%, 1671). CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that text mining can automatically extract targeted information from police-recorded DV events to support further public health research into the nexus between mental health disorders and DV.

scholarly journals Prevalence of Mental Illnesses in Domestic Violence Police Records: Text Mining Study

10.2196/23725 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. e23725
Author(s):  
George Karystianis ◽  
Annabeth Simpson ◽  
Armita Adily ◽  
Peter Schofield ◽  
David Greenberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Text Mining ◽  
New South ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Free Text ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Police Records ◽  
Health Justice ◽  
Improve Health

Background The New South Wales Police Force (NSWPF) records details of significant numbers of domestic violence (DV) events they attend each year as both structured quantitative data and unstructured free text. Accessing information contained in the free text such as the victim’s and persons of interest (POI's) mental health status could be useful in the better management of DV events attended by the police and thus improve health, justice, and social outcomes. Objective The aim of this study is to present the prevalence of extracted mental illness mentions for POIs and victims in police-recorded DV events. Methods We applied a knowledge-driven text mining method to recognize mental illness mentions for victims and POIs from police-recorded DV events. Results In 416,441 police-recorded DV events with single POIs and single victims, we identified 64,587 events (15.51%) with at least one mental illness mention versus 4295 (1.03%) recorded in the structured fixed fields. Two-thirds (67,582/85,880, 78.69%) of mental illnesses were associated with POIs versus 21.30% (18,298/85,880) with victims; depression was the most common condition in both victims (2822/12,589, 22.42%) and POIs (7496/39,269, 19.01%). Mental illnesses were most common among POIs aged 0-14 years (623/1612, 38.65%) and in victims aged over 65 years (1227/22,873, 5.36%). Conclusions A wealth of mental illness information exists within police-recorded DV events that can be extracted using text mining. The results showed mood-related illnesses were the most common in both victims and POIs. Further investigation is required to determine the reliability of the mental illness mentions against sources of diagnostic information.

News Paper Reports of Bank Robberies and the Copycat Phenomenon

1992 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald V Clarke ◽  
Gerry McGrath
Keyword(s):  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
Bank Robbery ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Police Records

In response to concern about newspaper coverage of bank robberies in Australia, this study examines whether newspaper publicity resulting from successful bank robberies leads to copycat increases of bank and other robberies during the following week. It makes use of police records of robberies in New South Wales and newspaper stories for 1987 to 1989 from the two tabloids published daily in Sydney. No evidence of any copycat effect was found. Moreover, there was little evidence that the newspapers concerned were paying undue attention to bank robbery.

Nonfatal Strangulation During Domestic Violence Events in New South Wales: Prevalence and Characteristics Using Text Mining Study of Police Narratives

2021 ◽  
pp. 107780122110259
Author(s):  
Mandy Wilson ◽  
Erin Spike ◽  
George Karystianis ◽  
Tony Butler
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Text Mining ◽  
New South ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Public Health Issue ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Police Data ◽  
Intimate Partner Relationships ◽  
Rich Information ◽  
Partner Relationships

Nonfatal strangulation (NFS) is a common form of domestic violence (DV) that frequently leaves no visible signs of injury and can be a portent for future fatality. A validated text mining approach was used to analyze a police dataset of 182,949 DV events for the presence of NFS. Results confirmed NFS within intimate partner relationships is a gendered form of violence. The presence of injury and/or other (non-NFS) forms of physical abuse, emotional/verbal/social abuse, and the perpetrator threatening to kill the victim, were associated with significantly higher odds of NFS perpetration. Police data contain rich information that can be accessed using automated methodologies such as text mining to add to our understanding of this pressing public health issue.

Taking controlling and coercive behaviour seriously: Criminalising domestic violence in NSW

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-107
Author(s):  
Madeleine Causbrook
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Domestic Abuse ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
South Wales

This article argues that New South Wales (NSW) needs a domestic violence offence to criminally sanction controlling and coercive behaviour in relationships, and communicate that the harm particular to domestic violence deserves special recognition by the criminal law. It examines formulations of domestic abuse offences in domestic and international jurisdictions and suggests the merits of moving away from offences that focus on physical harm and subjective intention. Finally, a new domestic violence offence is proposed that is modelled on the UK's controlling or coercive behaviour offence, but more precisely defines ‘controlling’ and ‘coercive’ behaviours, and better accords with existing legislation.

The Broken Hill Psychopathology Project

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Yellowlees ◽  
Anil V. Kaushik
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Alcohol Abuse ◽  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Life Problems ◽  
Specific Disorders

The main objective of this study was to describe the psychiatric disorders seen in patients presenting for treatment in rural New South Wales. The patients were seen primarily in the community, in both public and private practice, but also in the local base hospital and prison. Seven hundred and seven patients were consecutively examined during the study period. The results of this study were compared with a previous Australia-wide study to identify specific disorders that were more prevalent in rural areas. Alcohol abuse and dependence stood out as being much more prevalent. Life problems such as domestic violence, sexual assault, and incest occurred commonly in women referred for psychiatric assessment. More than ten percent of the study patients were children aged under 17, who had similar prevalence rates of the various psychiatric disorders to a national comparison. It is concluded that alcohol abuse is very common in rural New South Wales, particularly in men, although there are also high rates in women, and this is probably related, in part at least, to the high rates of domestic violence, sexual assault and incest. It appears probable that there is a cycle of alcohol abuse in men leading to domestic violence and sexual abuse in women and children. This may contribute to the latter becoming anxious and depressed. The rates of the major functional psychiatric disorders were similar to those seen nationally. There is a great need for the maldistribution of psychiatrists between metropolitan and rural areas to be addressed.

Participant experiences of a post-release electronic monitoring program for domestic violence in New South Wales, Australia

2021 ◽  
pp. 263380762110287
Author(s):  
Ye In J. Hwang ◽  
Paul L. Simpson ◽  
Tony G. Butler
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Electronic Monitoring ◽  
New South ◽  
Community Integration ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Monitoring Program ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Program Adherence ◽  
The Relationship

Electronic monitoring has been increasingly used internationally with recent implementation in Australia for those convicted of domestic violence offenses. It is timely and important to gain a better understanding of the physical, psychological, social, and offending-related experiences and impacts of electronic monitoring on this group to inform further implementation. This study describes the experiences of individuals who were subject to a post-release electronic monitoring program for domestic violence in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Semi-structured phone interviews were conducted with 16 men who had recently experienced electronic monitoring. Thematic analysis was used to investigate common themes across participants’ experiences. Demographic and basic quantitative health data were also collected. Five themes were identified: (a) confusion regarding program practices, (b) awareness and pressure of monitoring, (c) social exclusion effects, (d) felt and enacted stigmatization, and (e) “for them not for me.” The findings reveal participants were highly aware of their being monitored, with a mix of positive and negative responses to this cognizance. Being electronically monitored had several flow-on effects on participants’ lives, creating challenges in social spheres across work and personal life. Stigma, both felt and enacted, featured heavily in participants’ responses. Individual factors that may affect program adherence were also identified, including education level and intent to commit a crime. Further quantitative work will be useful for informing a more complete understanding of the relationship between program experiences and outcomes such as reoffending and post-release community integration.

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