Analysis of the clinical and criminological characteristics of persons suffering from schizophrenia and their impact on the possibility of committing a repeated socially dangerous act: a comparative study

Abstract

In this retrospective study pursuing the objective of establishing the risk factors for the recurrence of illegal behavior in patients suffering from schizophrenia, we examined 147 patients who committed socially dangerous acts, were then found to be not criminally responsible by a court of law, and underwent compulsory treatment. The comparison of clinical and criminological characteristics of persons who committed repeated socially dangerous acts and had no previous criminal experience made it possible to distinguish statistically significant differences in a number of indicators that should be taken into account when assessing the potential social dangerousness of patients with schizophrenia. We have found direct correlations between being aged under 19 at the time of committing the first offence, the negative-personal mechanism of delict, the absence of psychiatric hospitalizations prior to offending, and the repetition of the socially dangerous act. Negative correlations with recidivating criminal activity had an older (over 40) age of first-time criminal prosecution and a positive-psychotic type of psychopathological mechanism of the socially dangerous act.