Working as a psychiatric nurse at a secure adolescent hospital has its dangers but can also be very rewarding professionally. By Flynn Murphy.

Speaking on the phone at the Forensic Hospital, a maximum security psychiatric hospital at Malabar, Jo McLaughlin says: "I guess this is the last frontier of nursing." McLaughlin is a psychiatric nurse and this night is working the late shift. She has worked at the 135-bed facility since October 2009, in its dedicated Adolescent Forensic Mental Health Unit, which is quarantined from the adult wards. The hospital treats several classes of people - those who have been found not guilty of a crime due to mental illness, those considered unfit to plead in court, and those who may not have...