Psykiskt störda brottslingar : En studie av begreppet "jämställd med sinnessjukdom" - dess historiska bakgrund och praktiska tillämpning

• The main objective of this thesis is to study the concept of "equivalent to insanity", its historical background and practical application.Based on a legal historical presentation I show that the term "equivalent to insanity" has one content under the 1864 Penal Statutes, and an entirely different one under the 1962 Criminal Code.The empirical findings are, that those persons in my material who were assessed to be "equivalent to insane" (298 persons), display similar characteristics as corresponding clientele in previous studies. They are, apart from being mentally disordered, also severely socially handicapped.After having examined the concept "equivalent to insanity" and described the persons which were deemed "equivalent", I then concentrate on the question of the reliability of these assessments. The findings are that there is good accordance between different assessments of the same criminal case.To answer the question whether this special category of offenders is treatable, I have used a control group consisting of offenders who where assessed not to be "equivalent to insane" (256 persons). My criterion for "treatability" is recidivism into crime in a three-year period. The results are, that psychiatric treatment has apositive crime preventive effect on some categories of offenders (especially offenders sentenced for assault), but none of significance on others (especially property offenders). It is therefore erroneous to pose the question: Does psychiatric treatment have more crime preventive effect than a prison sentence? The question is far too general. One must take into consideration the crime category dominating the study groups. But it is probable that even further ambiguities are concealed in the question. It is therefore cruicial that further research be aimed at seeking crime preventive factors of psychiatric treatment of mentally disordered offenders.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Mentally Disordered Offenders

Forensic Psychiatry

Criminal Law

Crime Recidivism

Crime Prevention

INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AREAS

TVÄRVETENSKAPLIGA FORSKNINGSOMRÅDEN

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