Organised Crime & Crime Prevention - what works? - Scandinavian ...

NSfK´s 40. forskerseminar, Espoo, Finland 1998
that the penal system transfers more and more criminals, first of all the most troublesome, to
the psychiatric system. Some years ago we investigated this hypothesis, Kramp,1993. Table 1
shows the total number of forensic patients in 1987 and in 1991. As mentioned '16
encompasses the psychotics, § 69 the non-psychotics. As already seen there is an increasing
number of forensic cases - from 1987 to 1991, the number has increased by 26%. However, if
one divides the patients into two groups, the psychotics and the non-psychotics, it is seen that
there is a decrease in the number of forensic patients who do not suffer from psychoses, while
the psychotics increase dramatically. If there should be any support of the “psychiatrization of
the criminals” one should expect an increasing number of non-psychotics i.e. §69-patients,
however, this has not happened, on the contrary - they are decreasing.
Table 1. Forensic patients in 1987 and 1991
Total
§16
1987
521
335
§69
186
§16: Psychotic when committing the crime
§69: The non-psychotics
1991
658
538
120
Difference
137 / 26%
203 / 61%
-66 / -35%
The material consists only of the number of cases, and does not allow any diagnostic
classification. However, there are various Danish studies about forensic patients including the
diagnoses of the patients, Table 2 shows uniformly that the majority of the forensic patients
were psychotics and around 50% suffered from schizophrenia. An unpublished cross-sectionstudy
carried out by Jens Lund in Crhus from November 1997 shows a fraction of
schizophrenia among §16-patients between 65% and 70%. In conclusion in Denmark at least,
there has been no “psychiatrization of the criminals”, for sure the opposite - “criminalization
of the mentally ill”, first and foremost the schizoprenics.
Table 2. Forensic Patients in Denmark
Forensic Patients, 01.01.70 - 31.12.78, Copenhagen County
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