Criminal recidivism of patients in Swedish forensic psychiatry: A register-based comparison study

Eirini Alexiou; Thomas Nilsson; Peter Andiné; Alessio Degl' Innocenti

doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2023.101884

Criminal recidivism of patients in Swedish forensic psychiatry: A register-based comparison study

Int J Law Psychiatry. 2023 May-Jun:88:101884. doi: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2023.101884. Epub 2023 Mar 27.

Authors

Eirini Alexiou¹, Thomas Nilsson², Peter Andiné², Alessio Degl' Innocenti³

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Ethics, Law and Mental Health (CELAM), Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; Department of Forensic Psychiatry, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden. Electronic address: eirini.alexiou@vgregion.se.
² Centre for Ethics, Law and Mental Health (CELAM), Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; Department of Forensic Psychiatry, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden; Department of Forensic Psychiatry, National Board of Forensic Medicine, Gothenburg, Sweden.
³ Centre for Ethics, Law and Mental Health (CELAM), Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; Regionhälsan, Region Västra Götaland, Gothenburg, Sweden.

PMID: 36989591
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2023.101884

Abstract

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate criminal outcomes of mentally disordered offenders in compulsory forensic psychiatric care during the year 2010 versus 2018. More specifically, we sought to identify the occurrence of new criminal sentences during ongoing treatment and possible factors associated with recidivistic criminality. Another aim was to map previous criminality, types of index crime, and whether there were any changes within this decade.

Methods: Crime-, clinical, and treatment-related variables were collected from the Swedish National Forensic Psychiatric Register for all unique inpatients registered from January 1-December 31 in 2010 (N = 717) and 2018 (N = 757). The mean, frequency, percentage, and standard deviation were calculated per variable and stratified by study year and gender. Between-group comparisons were made using t-tests and Chi-square tests. Binary logistic regression was performed to determine whether variables expected to be associated with recidivism showed any relation to criminal recidivism for each study cohort.

Results: Most patients were male and approximately one-quarter and one-half of the men, respectively, had a previous sentence for non-violent and violent crimes. The 2018 cohort showed significantly lower rates of sentences to forensic psychiatry with special court supervision although the numbers were low in both cohorts and for both men and women. Previous violent conviction was associated with criminal recidivism during treatment in 2010, while this was joined by index crime under the influence of alcohol/illicit drugs for the 2018 cohort.

Conclusions: Overall, these results showed more similarities between the 2010 and 2018 cohorts then dissimilarities, while on the other hand some quite substantial differences were described between males versus females. The results of this study indicate that it may be possible to tailor forensic psychiatric treatment to gender as a proxy for other variables related to increased criminal recidivism in offenders sentenced to forensic psychiatric care.

Keywords: Criminal outcome; Demographics; Forensic psychiatry; Recidivism; SNFPR; Swedish forensic psychiatric register.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Crime / psychology
Criminals* / psychology
Female
Forensic Psychiatry
Humans
Male
Mental Disorders* / epidemiology
Mental Disorders* / psychology
Mental Disorders* / therapy
Recidivism*
Sweden / epidemiology