A Recommended Read from: The Los Angeles Times * Town and Country * The Seattle Times * Publishers Weekly * Lit Hub * Crime Reads * Alma From the author of The Real Lolita and editor of Unspeakable Acts, the astonishing story of a murderer who conned the people around him—including conservative thinker William F. Buckley—into helping set him free In the 1960s, Edgar Smith, in priso[Bokinfo]

4. Services and facilities for intellectually disadvantaged people

Brian Cuban was a successful lawyer—and an addict. Brian Cuban was living a lie. With a famous last name and a successful career as a lawyer, Brian was able to hide his clinical depression and alcohol and cocaine addictions—for a while. Today, as an inspirational speaker in long-term recovery, Brian looks back on his journey with honesty, compassion, and even humor as he reflects both on what he has learned about himself and his career choice and how the legal profession enables addiction. His demons, which date to his childhood, controlled him through failed marriages and stays in a psychiatric facility, until they brought him to the brink of suicide. That was his wake-up call. This is his story. Brian also takes an in-depth look at why there is such a high percentage of problematic alcohol use and other mental health issues in the legal profession. What types of therapies work? Are 12-step programs the only answer? Brian also includes interviews with experts on the subject as well as others in the profession who are now in recovery. The Addicted Lawyer is both a serious study of addiction and a compelling story of redemption.

Focus in the media on the risks posed to ordinary people has become increasingly strong in recent years - particularly on those risks popularly perceived to be posed by the mentally ill. But how justified is this concern? How do we best manage so-called dangerous people? In Will They Do It Again? Herschel Prins considers the issue of public protection within a broad context of risk in society generally, examining the concerns arising in contemporary society from dealing with uncertainty. It is argued that public fear over the danger posed by the mentally ill is at odds with the evidence, and that much of the concern is focused on a small number of high-profile cases. Prins goes on to examine such cases where management of the mentally ill has failed and sets out suggestions for improvements in practice. Will They Do It Again? cuts through popular misunderstanding and media hype over risk to give a clear, unbiased picture of the real risks to society from the mentally ill and how best they can be contained and managed, and will prove invaluable to a range of practitioners involved in the fields of criminal justice and psychiatry.

"Over the years of the developing judicial review of ministerial and governmental decisions, Louis Blom-Cooper was a leading advocate who grew up with the advent of a distinctive brand of public law. His range of public activities, both inside and out of the courtroom, saw him dubbed by his colleagues as a polymath practitioner. They included chairmanship of plural public inquiries in child abuse and mental health, media contributions and innovation in penal reform. This book is a collection of his essays, prefaced by a self-examination of his unorthodox philosophy towards the law in action. It covers a variety of socio-legal topics that express his ambition to inform the public on the workings of the legal system. This involves a discussion of the history of Britain's unwritten and, in the author's view, insufficiently interpreted constitution. It reflects a commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights and portrays its international origins. It also opines on crime and punishment in the functioning of the courts and elsewhere, and the political shift from the penal optimism of the 1970s to the reactionary punitiveness of the post-1990s. The essays conclude with a miscellany of affairs, reflecting on professional practices and the author's judicial heroes Lord Reid and Lord Bingham."--Bloomsbury Publishing.