International journal of law and psychiatry
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Int J Law Psychiatry · May 2012
Inpatient treatment in the psychiatric department of a German prison hospital.
Although the construct of psychic incompetence can prevent severely mentally disturbed persons from being imprisoned in Germany, the prevalence of mentally disordered persons who are detained is high. Data describing the characteristics of mentally disturbed detainees in Germany are scarce. The following study uses data from a psychiatric care institution in a prison to examine the distribution of psychiatric diagnoses in relation to age, nationality and legal status. The distribution of diagnoses is compared to that of the psychiatric department at a Berlin community hospital. ⋯ Personality disorders were more frequently diagnosed in German than in non-German patients. The burden of personality disorders among mentally ill prison detainees in Berlin Prison Hospital was not significantly higher than that of a Berlin community hospital. The percentage of non-German patients in the psychiatric department of the Berlin Prison Hospital was more than two times higher than in a psychiatric department of a community hospital. The lower-than-expected rate of suicide attempts among pre-trial detainees may be an indicator of a beneficial effect of the treatment setting in the psychiatric department of Berlin Prison Hospital.