Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T23:16:22.635Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Unfit to Plead in England and Wales, 1976–88

A Survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2018

D. H. Grubin
D. H. Grubin*
Affiliation:
Department of Forensic Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Home Office files of all 295 cases of defendants being found unfit to plead between 1976 and 1988 were evaluated. The majority were male and either schizophrenic or mentally impaired. Median age was 32 years. Two-thirds had past criminal convictions, and nearly 90% had past contact with psychiatric or social services, but only 28% were receiving psychiatric care at the time of their alleged offence; 14% were hospital in-patients. Offences of theft and violence predominated, but in most cases they were not of a serious nature: 34% were rated as mild or nuisance, 40% moderate, and 26% severe. In more than 80% of cases, evidence linking the accused with the offence seemed good. Less than one-third were admitted to special hospitals. Forty-six per cent of the population (135 patients) eventually regained their capacity to plead (within a median of four months), with 76 (26%) returning for trial. Of the remainder, 68 (23%) are still in hospital, 39 of whom have been there for more than five years. Time to discharge without trial reflected the severity of the alleged offence.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 158 , Issue 4 , April 1991 , pp. 540 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1991 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Chiswick, D. (1978) Insanity in bar of trial in Scotland: a state hospital study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 132, 598–601.Google Scholar
Chiswick, D. (1990) Fitness to stand trial and plead, mutism and deafness. In Principles and Practice of Forensic Psychiatry (eds R. Bluglass & P. Bowden). London: Churchill Livingstone.Google Scholar
Emmins, C. (1986) Unfitness to plead: thoughts prompted by Glenn Pearson's case. Criminal Law Review, 604–618.Google Scholar
Geller, J. L. & Lister, E. D. (1978) The process of criminal commitment for pretrial psychiatric examination: an evaluation. American Journal of Psychiatry, 135, 53–60.Google ScholarPubMed
Grubin, D. H. (1991) Unfit to plead, unfit for discharge. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health (in press).Google Scholar
Hess, J. H. & Thomas, H. E. (1963) Incompetency to stand trial: procedures, results, and problems. American Journal of Psychiatry, 119, 713–720.Google Scholar
Hibbert, C. (1963) The Roots of Evil. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.Google Scholar
Home Office & DHSS (1975) Report of the Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders (The Butler Report), cmnd 6244. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Lamb, H. R. (1987) Incompetency to stand trial: appropriateness and outcome. Archives of General Psychiatry, 44, 754–758.Google Scholar
Larkin, E. P. & Collins, P. J. (1989) Fitness to plead and psychiatric reports. Medicine, Science and the Law, 29, 26–32.Google Scholar
McGarry, A. L. (1971) The fate of psychotic offenders returned for trial. American Journal of Psychiatry, 127, 1181–1184.Google Scholar
Mitchell, S. & Richardson, P. J. (1985) Arch bold – Pleading, Evidence and Practice in Criminal Cases (42nd edn). London: Sweet and Maxwell.Google Scholar
Normand, A. C. (1984) Unfitness for trial in Scotland: proposed adjudication of the facts and the right to reprosecute. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 7, 415–435.Google Scholar
Phillips, M. R., Wolf, A. S. & Coons, D. J. (1988) Psychiatry and the criminal justice system: testing the myths. American Journal of Psychiatry, 145, 605–610.Google Scholar
Reich, J. & Wells, J. (1986) Defendents with repeated competency evaluations. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 174, 120–122.Google Scholar
Steadman, H. J., Monahan, J. Hartson, E., et al (1982) Mentally disordered offenders: a national survey of patients and facilities. Law and Human Behaviour, 6, 31–38.Google Scholar
Swann, M. (1981) Fitness to plead. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 26, 503–509.Google Scholar
Szasz, T. (1989) Psychiatric justice. British Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 864–869.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walker, N. (1968) Crime and Insanity in England, Vol. 1: The Historical Perspective. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, N. (1987) Crime and Criminology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.