This article focuses on service provision for women who are involuntarily referred under the UK Mental Health Act (1983) into medium and high security care in England and Wales. We explore how physical and procedural security in such settings is prioritized over relational care (see also Fallon Report, Department of Health, 1999a and NHS Executive, 2000 – Tilt Report). We are not arguing against the importance of protecting the public from the acts of dangerous members of our society. However, we (...) are arguing that many of the women in our secure services are inappropriately placed and receive inappropriate forms of treatment and care. Rather than physical security, it is high relational care, which the women require. Further, we argue that current service provision often re-produces forms of violence and violation which have marked many of women's lives prior to their entry into the secure system. (shrink)

Though much is written about animal suffering, little is said about the nature of suffering itself. Without any clarity about its conceptual nature, discussions concerning detection, prevention and reduction of suffering are seriously hampered. This paper considers – and rejects – some of the more usual understandings of suffering. Instead, an alternative understanding of suffering is proposed, namely that suffering is the experiencing of one's life as going badly. This notion is tied to the loss of individuals' central life projects. (...) It is suggested that non-human animals' central projects are their evolved survival skills. This alternative view of suffering has major implications for animal welfare. (shrink)

It is commonly supposed that individual animals are of little relevance to conservation which is concerned, instead, with groups of things or 'wholes' such as species, habitats, and the like. It is further contended by some that by prioritising individuals, two of those values that are held dear by conservation – namely natural selection and fitness – are compromised. Taking wildlife rehabilitation as a paradigm case of concern for the individual, it is argued that the latter claim is based upon (...) mistaken assumptions. Then, using red deer culling as a case study, the discord between conservation 's holistic values and a concern for individual worth is explored. It emerges that the conservation value of red deer culling is more apparent than real and thus that there is more room for conservationists' acceptance of individual worth than usually supposed. (shrink)