My long and lone struggle has been to convince the legal profession, Crown Prosecution Service and the courts in the UK that cultural, religious and ethnic characteristics of a person are as important and useful in legal considerations to deliver justice as one’s age, gender and occupation or social class.
In this first article I give some examples from my observations emphasising how cultural issues may affect the delivery of justice.
PSYCHOLOGISTS SPECIFICALLY trained in legal issues, as well as those with no formal training, are often called by legal parties to testify as expert witnesses.
In criminal trials, an expert witness may be called to testify about a vast range of issues such as eyewitness memory, mistaken identity and fitness to plead (in court) - to name just a few.
CHILD ABUSE IS probably the widest known type of abuse and involves many complex factors relating to legal issues. Dealing with this difficult situation sensitively, whilst attempting to provide legal evidence is the role of the child psychologist.
Psychologists may complete child abuse investigations for government or private agencies, for a parent making allegations against another adult or parent, for a parent being accused of child abuse, for the court as part of a custody or visiting rights risk assessment, or as part of the treatment of a child or adult.
IN 1890, VASECTOMY was first suggested as an alternative to castration for men with enlarged prostates. In the early 1890’s, it was also suggested as a ‘treatment’ for certain criminals and undesirables, and for a time, enforced sterilisation was legal for some. It wasn’t until 1948 that vasectomy came into common use as a form of permanent contraception. At this time, the operation was performed through an incision on each side of the scrotum, a loop of vas deferens would be brought through the incision, a segment removed and the ends tied off. In 1974, no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV) was pioneered by Dr Li Shunquang in China, carried out through a single mid-line incision or puncture wound under local anaesthetic and is now the recommended method of vasectomy in Britain.
An embryological journey
If only it were so simple. After all, herniae are common in infants and young boys who hardly strain at all (except to fill their nappies) and we all strain from time to time but most of us never develop a hernia. In order for me to explain I need to take you on a journey. Come with me to the start, in a mother's womb. One of the last bits of male development in the foetus is the appearance of testes in the scrotum.
Earlier, each testis develops with its kidney on the back wall of the abdomen; but it eventually breaks free and migrates down and round to the front and then through a tunnel in the muscles of the groin, or inguinal, region. This tunnel leads to the neck of the scrotum and then on down to where most testes end up. Any problem with this leads to undescended testis, a common congenital abnormality which either rights itself in the first few years of life or needs a surgical operation to correct it.
