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Risk factor analysis among military veterans deployed between 1990 and 2013 (n ¼ 21 608). Data retrieved from mandatory conscription.
Source publication
Objective:
To investigate the incidence of violent crime conviction among Swedish military veterans after deployment to Afghanistan versus non-deployed comparators. The main outcome was first conviction of a violent crime, retrieved from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention Register until December 31, 2013.
Methods:
This was a cohor...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... predictor analysis was confined to men only since no women were convicted of a violent crime during follow-up. Within the military veteran cohort, risk factors for being convicted of a violent crime were lower age at deployment and lower psychological assessment and cognitive ability test scores, as well as pre-deployment violent crime convictions (Figure 3). ...
Similar publications
Background
We examined whether childhood conduct problems predicted a wide range of adverse outcomes in emerging adulthood and whether the association with internalizing problems remained after adjusting for general comorbidity and externalizing problems.
Methods
Participants were 18,649 twins from the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden. At...
Citations
... Similar patterns have been observed in other Nordic countries (Pethrus et al., 2022). Subsequent studies have also shown that Swedish veterans deployed to Afghanistan did not have an increased risk of being convicted of violent crime, nor did they consume more anxiolytics or antidepressants, or receive more psychiatric inpatient care, than non-deployed comparators (Pethrus, et al., 2019a). Indeed, Wisén and his colleagues (2021), who studied stress levels over time for a sample of Swedish peacekeepers deployed to Afghanistan, challenged the general view of military deployment as an inevitable source of negative stress and argued for a shift in focus towards potential positive aspects of deployment. ...
... Consequently, veterans and non-veterans are likely to be very different in ways that might influence their labour market outcomes, regardless of whether or not they served as peacekeepers. Indeed, previous research has shown that Swedish veterans are a selected sample of mentally and physically healthy individuals with above average levels of both cognitive and noncognitive ability (Pethrus et al., 2017;Pethrus, et al., 2019a;Pethrus et al., 2019b). Since these (pre-deployment) characteristics are likely to be correlated with (post-deployment) labour market outcomes (see Edin et al., 2022;Lindqvist and Vestman, 2011), simply comparing veterans to non-veterans in the general population is bound to lead to biased estimates of the effects from service. ...
... I show that there is no indication of long-term labour market marginalisation for the sample of young veterans who served in Bosnia in the 1990s. As such, my results echo previous studies that highlight the well-being of Swedish peace veterans (Michel et al., 2003(Michel et al., , 2007Pethrus et al., 2019a;Pethrus et al., 2017;Pethrus et al., 2022;Wisén et al., 2021), as well as studies on the labour market affiliation of Danish soldiers returning from international deployment (Elrond et al., 2019;Nissen et al., 2016). For all follow-up times, the prevalence of work disability and social welfare assistance among the veterans in my sample is similar to, or lower than, that of the matched comparison group of birth-cohort peers who did not serve. ...
... Hyioshi et al. demonstrated that men with poor vision had a higher rate of cycling injuries [48]. The association between military deployment abroad and mental health, mortality, violent crime, marriage and divorce has also been investigated [49][50][51][52]. The assessment of conscripts by a psychologist has been linked to labour market outcomes (e.g., earnings and unemployment) [1] and associated with managerial vs. non-managerial positions [1]. ...
In Sweden, conscription around age 18y was mandatory for young men until June 30, 2010. From July 1, 2017, it became mandatory again for both sexes but the proportion of summoned people for standardised testing has so far been low. This paper describes the history, structure and content of the Swedish Military Conscription Register (SMCR). We retrieved information about the SMCR from written sources and through e-mail interviews with key personnel at the Swedish Defence Conscription and Assessment Agency. We also analysed data from the SMCR between 1969 and 2018. Between 1969 and 2018 the SMCR contains digital data on approximately 2 million individuals (98.6% men). Most conscripts were born between 1951 and 1988 (n = 1,900,000; tested between 1969 and 2006). For the 1951–1987 birth cohorts, the register has a population coverage of approximately 90% for men. Conscripts underwent written tests focusing on verbal, spatial, logical and technical ability, medical, physical, and psychological tests. The medical assessment included hearing, vision, muscle and exercise capacity, height, weight, blood pressure and resting heart rate. The SMCR has been widely used to study, e.g., obesity, cardiovascular disease, mental health, crime, cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength, sick leave and disability pension. Severe disease could qualify for exemption from military service. Thus, the prevalence of such diseases is underestimated in the SMCR population. Between 1990 and 2018, about 25,000 women also volunteered for testing. The SMCR contains population-based data on physical and psychological health in about 90% of all men born between 1951 and 1987 (corresponding to testing between 1969 and 2006), and can be used to address a host of research questions.
Background
A previous scoping review of legal-involved veterans’ health and healthcare (1947–2017) identified studies and their limitations. Given the influx of literature published recently, this study aimed to update the previous review and map articles to the Veterans-Sequential Intercept Model (V-SIM) – a conceptual model used by key partners, including Veterans Health Administration, veteran advocates, criminal justice practitioners, and local governments to identify intercept points in the criminal legal system where resources and programming can be provided. Developing an updated resource of literature is essential to inform current research, discover gaps, and highlight areas for future research.
Methods
A systematic search of 5 databases identified articles related to legal-involved veterans’ health and healthcare published between December 2017 through December 2022. The first and senior authors conducted abstract reviews, full-text reviews, and data extraction of study characteristics. Finally, each article was sorted by the various intercept points from the V-SIM.
Results
Of 903 potentially relevant articles, 107 peer-reviewed publications were included in this review, most related to mental health (66/107, 62%) and used an observational quantitative study design (95/107, 89%). Although most articles did not explicitly use the V-SIM to guide data collection, analyses, or interpretation, all could be mapped to this conceptual model. Half of the articles (54/107, 50%) collected data from intercept 5 (Community Corrections and Support Intercept) of the V-SIM. No articles gathered data from intercepts 0 (Community and Emergency Services Intercept), 1 (Law Enforcement Intercept), or 2 (Initial Detention and Court Hearings Intercept).
Conclusions
There were 107 articles published in the last five years compared to 190 articles published in 70 years covered in the last review, illustrating the growing interest in legal-involved veterans. The V-SIM is widely used by front-line providers and clinical leadership, but not by researchers to guide their work. By clearly tying their research to the V-SIM, researchers could generate results to help guide policy and practice at specific intercept points. Despite the large number of publications, research on prevention and early intervention for legal-involved veterans is lacking, indicating areas of great need for future studies.
The United States has been at war in Afghanistan for nearly twenty years, with arguably no discernible end in sight. Yet there has been no public accounting of the costs of the on-going conflict, either for Afghanistan or America. While the war’s destruction is readily visible throughout much of the Afghan countryside, it is no less profoundly damaging to the social and political fabric of the United States. As the costs for this conflict come due, the U.S. will be faced with a bill it may be ill-equipped to pay – not only financially, but socially and politically as well. Indeed, Afghanistan may be the war that ultimately destroys American democracy as we know it.
In this Review, we summarise evidence on the association between different mental disorders and violence, with emphasis on high quality designs and replicated findings. Relative risks are typically increased for all violent outcomes in most diagnosed psychiatric disorders compared with people without psychiatric disorders, with increased odds in the range of 2–4 after adjustment for familial and other sources of confounding. Absolute rates of violent crime over 5–10 years are typically below 5% in people with mental illness (excluding personality disorders, schizophrenia, and substance misuse), which increases to 6–10% in personality disorders and schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and to more than 10% in substance misuse. Past criminality and comorbid substance misuse are strongly predictive of future violence in many individual disorders. We reviewed national clinical practice guidelines, which vary in content and require updating to reflect the present epidemiological evidence. Standardised and clinically feasible approaches to the assessment and management of violence risk in general psychiatric settings need to be developed.
