Incidents in Hospitalized Forensic Patients

• NCJ Number: 85264
• Journal: Victimology Volume: 5 Issue: 2-4 Dated: (1980) Pages: 175-192
• Author(s): C L J Stokman; P Heiber
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 18 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Presented at the First World Congress of Victimology, Washington, DC, August 20-24, 1980.

Annotation

The study describes and analyzes violent incidents among inpatients of the Mid-Hudson Psychiatric Center in New York to discover patterns revealing environmental and patient characteristics associated with high and low incident rates. These patterns can be used in criminal patient treatment and management and perhaps in the prediction and prevention of violence.

Abstract

Patient incidents in this sample are not randomly distributed over time, place, or patient characteristics. Instead, certain patterns emerge, suggesting a differential vulnerability or incident-proneness related to the patient's illness, legal status, sex, time during hospitalization, etc. The typical forensic patient at the center is a young adult male, charged or indicted with a violent crime and with a prior criminal record, a diagnosis of schizophrenia or personality disorder, and a history of prior hospitalizations. The most incident-prone patient is a young female, recently admitted in civil status, with a diagnosis of mental retardation or organic brain syndrome and a history of previous psychiatric hospitalization. The temporal distribution of incidents demonstrates the most vulnerable periods for a patient during hospitalization. Any patient is incident-prone immediately following admission, and criminal patients are particularly prone to violence when their diagnoses are being formulated. There were no relationships between clinical judgment of dangerousness and diagnosis or criminal charges. Thus, incident-proneness during hospitalization is probably not useful as a predictor of future violent or dangerous behavior. Civil legal status appears to be the only discriminator between dangerous and nondangerous patients. This relationship is not surprising since civil patients have been admitted because of their past violent or dangerous behavior. Study data and 31 references are supplied. (Author abstract modified)