Citation

Mackay RD, Ward T. Br. J. Criminol. 1994; 34(1): 30-43.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1994, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Publisher Oxford University Press)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Very little is known about patients who have been the subject of long-term detention as a result of a finding ofunfitness to plead or legal insanity. In order to discover more about such patients permission was sought to examine Home Office files on all those who had been detained for 15 years of more up to December 1988. Permission was also obtained to interview a number of these patients who were held in three of the high security Special Hospitals. Two issues highlighted by the research were the use of common sense' criteria of danger ousness and the apparent wish of many of these patients to remain in hospital. The article concludes by calling for a reconsideration of the need for the continuing detention of this group of patients.