Developmental Tendencies in Danish Criminal Psychiatry Criminal Psychiatric Problems 1

• NCJ Number: 80288
• Journal: Ugeskrift for Laeger Volume: 139 Issue: 10 Dated: (March 7, 1977) Pages: 601-608
• Author(s): S Borberg; O N Jenson; M Schioler
• Date Published: 1977
• Length: 8 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Country: Denmark

Annotation

This Danish paper outlines the problems and background involved in criminal psychiatry; it concludes that some of the criminal psychiatric clientele do not fit into any of the existing institutions in Denmark.

Abstract

The field of criminal psychiatry is described as the psychiatric activity involving delinquents within the psychiatric therapeutic system and within the penal system. The clientele involved may be sentenced to ordinary punitive measures or to psychiatric sanctions (supervision, treatment, or detention in a psychiatric hospital). In recent years, the tendency to normalization has gained ground in legal practice, the penal system, and psychiatry. This has been apparent in legislation that weakens special arrangements for nonpsychotic mentally abnormal offenders and in legal practice by employment of normal procedures and omission of mental observation. In psychiatry, the tendency to normalization has become apparent. In the penal system, the tendency to normalization has emphasized resocialization. This development toward normalization can create practical difficulties for psychiatric departments which must deal with clients from the courts, particularly where the question of legal security is involved. Similarly, the penal system has difficulty in dealing with mentally abnormal clientele. The continued requirements of the legal system for legal security, particularly during the period of detention, together with the lessened capacity of psychiatric departments to fulfill these requirements, may result in increased use of the Institution in Herstedvester, which is run along psychiatric lines. Finally, the approximate doubling of the number of psychiatric sanctions in recent years, probably because of problems involved with drug addicts, will increase the intensity of the problems. Tables and 16 references are provided. An English summary is provided. (Author summary modified)