Several states are changing legislation and treatment programs for
mentally ill offenders without knowing how current laws and programs
operate. To address this problem the authors linked data from police
records, court reports, and clinical files for 2,735 psychiatric referrals
from the criminal justice system of Alaska from 1977 through 1981. They
found that only 0.2%-2.0% of all schizophrenic persons in the community
were arrested for violent crimes each year, accounting for 1.1%-2.3% of all
arrests for violent crimes; that psychiatrists agreed about competency and
responsibility in 79% of the cases evaluated by more than one clinician;
and that a successful insanity defense occurred in 0.1% or less of all
criminal cases.
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