No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Forensic care in Germany
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2020
Abstract
Although the idea that offenders suffering from a mental disorder must primarily be considered as ill and should therefore be exempted from punishment is of considerable antiquity legal frameworks and key concepts, which are applied in this field, differ widely in European Union member States. The respective legal regulations and epidemiological data of Germany will be presented.
In German penal law the question of the guilt of an offender is of central significance. Legal regulations on the placement and treatment of mentally ill offenders in a forensic psychiatric hospital are subsumed under the section “Measures on improvement and safety”. Section 63 of the German penal law provides for the temporally unlimited commitment to a forensic- psychiatric hospital.
In accordance with section 64 of the German penal law addicted offenders can be committed to a detoxification center for a period of up to two years. The available epidemiological data show a clear increase in the admissions to forensic psychiatric hospitals and to detoxification centers since beginnings of the 1990s. Recently the German parliament passed a new law. The aim of the new law is to strengthen patients’ rights and to diminish the number of forensic patients.
The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.
- Type
- Workshop: Forensic psychiatry in Europe in 2017: Discussing similarities and differences of five national systems
- Information
- European Psychiatry , Volume 41 , Issue S1: Abstract of the 25th European Congress of Psychiatry , April 2017 , pp. S61
- Copyright
- Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2017
Comments
No Comments have been published for this article.