Forensic psychiatric patients among immigrants in Denmark – Diagnoses and criminality

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyse a sample of immigrant forensic psychiatric patients and to compare them with Danish patients. Of the 326 forensic patients in Copenhagen, 111 were immigrants or descendants of immigrants. The sample was broken down according to area of origin, age, gender and ethnic status. The data have been analysed by Poisson regression with the background population as an offset variable. Of the patients of non-Danish ethnicity, a significantly higher ratio was diagnosed with schizophrenia and a lower ratio was diagnosed with personality disorders compared with Danes. Iranians accounted for a higher ratio than did other minority groups, whereas patients from Western Europe/USA were not different from Danes. The higher ratio of forensic schizophrenic patients of non-Danish ethnicity cannot be explained by social factors or substance abuse. Migration increases the age-adjusted risk (ARR) of becoming schizophrenic (ARR=2.7). We found the ARR of becoming a male forensic schizophrenic patient among immigrants/descendants to be 2.8, i.e. the same as that caused by migration as such. Violence and schizophrenia are associated, and this explains the fact that the ratio of immigrants/descendants having committed violence exceeds that of Danes. Non-violent crimes are more equally distributed among ethnic groups and seem to be associated with common criminogenic factors. Arson is mainly committed by older schizophrenic patients of Danish ethnicity. The risk of an individual immigrant and Danish schizophrenic patient exhibiting criminal behaviour is the same. Schizophrenia is a criminogenic factor in violence, but not in non-violent crimes. The differences between the various ethnic groups could be related to selection caused by both immigration and emigration.

Variations in psychiatric morbidity between traumatized Norwegian, refugees and other immigrant patients in Oslo

“…Moving to a new country and culture is known to be a psychosocial stressor and risk factor for developing mental illness, also after trauma. This has also been found in other Nordic countries [45,46].…”

Ethnic variations in psychotic disorders in the criminal justice system: A systematic review

“…A total of five studies received a high score on methodological quality (Bhui et al, 1998;Coid & Ullrich, 2011;Gabrielsen & Kramp, 2009;Gosden et al, 2006;Vinkers et al, 2013). Three of these studies found significant higher prevalence rates of psychotic disorders in BME detainees compared to non-BME detainees (Bhui et al, 1998;Gabrielsen & Kramp, 2009;Vinkers et al, 2013) whereas the other two could not find any significant ethnic variations regarding the prevalence rates of psychotic disorders (Coid & Ullrich, 2011;Gosden et al, 2006).…”

“…One difference between the high-quality studies with equivocal findings is the number of ethnic groups under study: high quality studies that found ethnic variations separated five (Bhui et al, 1998), seven (Gabrielsen & Kramp, 2009) and eight (Vinkers et al, 2013) different ethnic groups respectively, whereas both studies that did not, only investigated two ethnic groups (Coid & Ullrich, 2011;Gosden et al, 2006). These lower numbers of ethnic groups under study may have resulted from the fact that the latter two studies were not hypothesis driven when comparing ethnicity, but rather focused on psychotic prisoners in general.…”

“…Additionally, both studies (Coid & Ullrich, 2011;Gosden et al, 2006) that did not find any ethnic variations in psychotic disorders were executed in a regular prison setting, whereas the three studies (Bhui et al, 1998;Gabrielsen & Kramp, 2009;Vinkers et al, 2013) that did find BME prisoners to have higher prevalence rates had been executed in a forensic psychiatric setting or with prisoners who were suspected of having a psychiatric disorder.…”

Does internal migration affect criminal behavior in schizophrenia patients?

“…Schizophrenia was a factor in the occurrence of crimes involving violence but not a factor in non-violent crimes. Non-violent crimes were dispersed equally among ethnic groups whereas schizophrenia and violence were together and crimes of violence came to the forefront among immigrants and their children (2).…”