The Post Office Scandal in the United Kingdom: Mental health and social experiences of wrongly convicted and wrongly accused individuals

IF 2.2 2区社会学 Q1 CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY Legal and Criminological Psychology Pub Date : 2023-08-28 DOI:10.1111/lcrp.12247

Bethany Growns, Jeff Kukucka, Richard Moorhead, Rebecca K. Helm

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Abstract

Background

Wrongful criminal conviction can significantly impair the mental health of exonerees. However, much less is known about wrongful accusation: the impact of wrongful legal allegations or investigations—absent conviction—on mental health outcomes.

Method

To address this gap, we surveyed 101 victims of the Post Office Scandal in the United Kingdom who were wrongly accused, convicted and/or investigated for financial ‘losses’ that were actually caused by software errors.

Results

Most respondents reported clinically significant post-traumatic stress (67%) and depressive (60%) symptoms—irrespective of the outcome of their case. These results suggest that both wrongful accusation and wrongful conviction can significantly impair mental health.

Conclusion

Our findings have important implications for victims of the Post Office Scandal and highlight the unique needs of people impacted by flawed convictions and flawed legal accusations. Our findings underscore the need to provide exonerees with holistic postrelease support and demonstrate that this support should also be extended to victims of wrongful accusation.

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英国邮局丑闻:被错误定罪和被错误指控的个人的心理健康和社会经历

错误的刑事定罪会严重损害无辜者的心理健康。然而，人们对错误指控知之甚少:错误的法律指控或调查(没有定罪)对心理健康结果的影响。为了解决这一差距，我们调查了英国邮局丑闻的101名受害者，他们被错误地指控、定罪和/或因财务“损失”而被调查，而这些损失实际上是由软件错误造成的。大多数应答者报告了临床显著的创伤后应激(67%)和抑郁(60%)症状——无论其病例的结果如何。这些结果表明，错误的指控和错误的定罪都会显著损害心理健康。我们的研究结果对邮局丑闻的受害者具有重要意义，并突出了受到有缺陷的定罪和有缺陷的法律指控影响的人们的独特需求。我们的研究结果强调需要为无罪释放者提供全面的释放后支持，并表明这种支持也应扩展到错误指控的受害者。

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来源期刊

Legal and Criminological Psychology Multiple-

CiteScore

4.00

自引率

4.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Legal and Criminological Psychology publishes original papers in all areas of psychology and law: - victimology - policing and crime detection - crime prevention - management of offenders - mental health and the law - public attitudes to law - role of the expert witness - impact of law on behaviour - interviewing and eyewitness testimony - jury decision making - deception The journal publishes papers which advance professional and scientific knowledge defined broadly as the application of psychology to law and interdisciplinary enquiry in legal and psychological fields.

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