Undocumented immigrant women who are abused and living in the United States are isolated in a foreign country, in constant fear of deportation, and feel at the mercy of their spouse to gain legal status. To ensure that immigration law does not trap women in abusive relationships, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA, 1994) enabled immigrant women to self-petition for legal status. Qualitative research methods were used in this participatory action research to investigate the experiences of Mexican immigrant women filing VAWA self-petitions. Emotional, financial, and logistic barriers in applying are identified, and recommendations for practice research and policy are provided.

We evaluated police contact with individuals prior to suicide, using a systematic study of suicides within County Durham and Darlington over a 3-year period and analysis of police computer records covering the same area. A total of 205 cases of suicide were identified. A fifth of these (n=41) had a documented contact with police within 3 months prior to the suicide, there was an equal mixture of victims and alleged perpetrators of crime, and a significant number of those with police contact had also seen a health professional recently. As many people see a police officer in the 3 months prior to their suicide as see a mental health professional within 12 months prior to suicide. Our findings have implications for suicide prevention.

No abstract

No abstract