Most of those who receive care within forensic psychiatry are deprived of their liberty for several years. Despite this, knowledge has been poor about how those who are discharged fare.
Ebba Noland, a doctoral student at the Department of Social Work at Umeå University, has compiled data from 1,150 people who were discharged from forensic psychiatric care between 2009 and 2018. She describes the results as more positive than she dared to hope for.
We see that this is a group that receives a great deal of social support. But it also turns out that when you get so much support, things generally go quite well. And by well, I mean that they don't reoffend very much.
Few relapses
Only 14 percent of the individuals in the study were convicted of a new crime during the follow-up period, significantly fewer than for those released from prison. There were also fewer who relapsed into substance abuse.
The support measures from society in the form of financial assistance, staffed housing with personnel, and legal support through a guardian or trustee, proved to be crucial for those discharged.
I've calculated this statistically, and regardless of care time, age, diagnosis, and other factors that normally play a role, it seems that this type of support measure is strongly linked to several positive things.
Measures have an impact
The support measures could be linked to both fewer crimes committed by those discharged and an increased likelihood that they would continue their medication.
It's fantastic to be able to show concretely that there are actual measures that we as a society can take that improve outcomes after forensic psychiatric care.
Those who suffer from a serious mental disorder and commit a crime should not be sentenced to prison, but to forensic psychiatric care. For most of those sentenced to forensic psychiatric care, a special discharge assessment (SUP) is also decided.
SUP means that the administrative court, not the chief physician, decides when a patient is discharged. The court should, in those cases, make a comprehensive assessment of the person's situation, where they particularly consider the risk of reoffending.
In 2023, forensic psychiatric care was the main sentence in 331 verdicts. Compared to 2014, the number of verdicts with forensic psychiatric care as the main sentence has increased by 27 percent.
At the same time as more people have been sentenced to forensic psychiatric care, care times have increased over several years.
In 2023, more than 2,000 people were cared for within forensic psychiatric inpatient care.
Source: Brå, SKR
