The characteristics of criminal and noncriminal mentally disordered patients

Russo, G; Salomone, Loredana; Villa, Lucia Della

doi:10.1016/s0160-2527(03)00043-8

Cited by 20 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Consistent with other studies, most cases in the current study were males [8,12] and previous contact with psychiatric services was found in 58% of cases [13,14]. However, the current study showed that prediction of danger in the murder and robbery groups is questionable, as the last contact of both groups with psychiatric services was significantly shorter than other groups.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Characteristics of mentally ill offenders from 100 psychiatric court reports

2010

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BackgroundThere is an increasing probability that the psychiatrist will, willingly or not, come into contact with mentally ill offenders in the course of their practice. There are increasing rates of violence, substance abuse and other psychiatric disorders that are of legal importance. Therefore, the aim of this work was to investigate the rates of different mental disorders in 100 court reports and to investigate the characteristics of mentally ill offenders.MethodsAll cases referred from different departments of the legal system to the forensic committee for assessment of legal accountability over 13-months duration were included. A specially designed form was prepared for data collection. Cases were classified into five groups: murder, robbery, financial offences, violent and simple offences and a group for other offences. Data were subjected to statistical analysis and comparisons between different groups of subjects were performed by analysis of variance (ANOVA).ResultsMen constituted 93% of cases. In all, 73% of offenders were younger than 40 years old. Schizophrenia cases made up 13% of the total, substance related cases constituted 56% and amphetamine cases alone made up 21%; 10% of cases were antisocial personality disorders, and 51% of cases were classified as having a low education level. Unemployment was found in 34% of cases. The final decision of the forensic committee was full responsibility in 46% of cases and partial responsibility in 11% of cases, with 33% considered non-responsible. A total of 58% of cases had had contact with psychiatric healthcare prior to the offence and in 9% of cases contact had been in the previous 12 weeks. A history of similar offences was found in 32% of cases. In all, 14% of the offences were murders, 8% were sexual crimes, and 31% were violent/simple crimes.ConclusionsThe ability of the legal system to detect cases was good, while the ability of the healthcare system to predict crimes and offences was weak, as 58% of cases had had previous contact with the healthcare system previously. Substance abuse, especially amphetamine abuse, played an important role.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Characteristics of mentally ill offenders from 100 psychiatric court reports

2010

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“…Since 1999, the opposite trend has emerged, and in the report of the Parliamentary Committee of 2010, the country's six FMHs were detaining 1421 patients. The scientific literature on forensic psychiatric patients in Italy is limited to very few articles, which mostly concern theoretical issues (Fioritti & Melega, 2000;Russo, Salomone, & Della Villa, 2003); a recent review on the history of Italian forensic psychiatry has been published by De Vito (2013). Only two follow-up studies of forensic patients have been conducted to date: a five-year retrospective study examining 96 patients who had been discharged from the Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto FMH.…”

Section: The Italian Forensic Psychiatric Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Violent behavior of patients living in psychiatric residential facilities: A comparison of male patients with different violence histories

Candini

Buizza

Ferrari

et al. 2015

International Journal of Law and Psychiatry

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People with severe mental disorders and a history of violence are often seen as a difficult-to-manage segment of the population. In addition, this group is usually characterized by a high risk of crime recidivism, and poor compliance with community and aftercare programs. To investigate a sample of male patients living in Residential Facilities (RFs) with a history of violent behavior against people and to compare their characteristics with those of never-violent residents; to analyze the associations between aggressive behaviors in the last two years and a history of previous violence; and, to assess the predictors of aggressive behaviors. This study is part of a prospective observational cohort study which involved 23 RFs in Northern Italy. A comprehensive set of sociodemographic, clinical, and treatment-related information was gathered, and standardized assessments were administered to each participant. Also a detailed assessment of aggressive behaviors in the past two years was carried out. The study involved 268 males: 81 violent and 187 never-violent. Compared to never-violent patients, violent patients were younger, with a higher proportion of personality disorders, and have displayed an increased number of aggressive behaviors in the last two years. The presence of a history of violent behavior in the past significantly increases the probability of committing aggressive acts in the future.

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“…Un membre de la famille est la victime du schizophrène meurtrier dans 50 à 60 % des cas, et un inconnu dans seulement 12 à 18 % des cas [8,15,19,26,29,33,36,37,39,40]. S. Meehan et al [26] …”

Section: L'expertiseunclassified