This page was translated automatically from Turkish. Read the original

This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

EV0597

Crime prevention strategies for violent offenders based on forensic psychiatric investigations at the Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine

CRIME PREVENTION STRATEGIES FOR VIOLENT OFFENDERS BASED ON FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIC INVESTIGATIONS AT THE SWEDISH NATIONAL BOARD OF FORENSIC MEDICINE

In the first national clinical cohort of 362 violent offenders undergoing forensic psychiatric investigation, 7 in 10 participants had previous contact with psychiatric services, highlighting the critical role of psychiatric services in crime prevention.

The aim of the study was to identify new crime prevention strategies by examining violent crimes committed by offenders undergoing forensic psychiatric investigation (FPI). A consecutive clinical study was conducted involving 362 violent offenders who underwent FPI at the Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine between 2021 and 2025; the research protocol included a total of 1,355 variables across medical, psychiatric, psychological, and social domains. According to the flowchart, of the 1,412 individuals who underwent FPI, 782 were invited to participate (55.4%), 630 were excluded (44.6%), 404 declined (51.7%), 378 consented (48.3%), 16 withdrew (4.2%), and 362 completed participation (46.3%). In the study cohort, the rate of severe mental disorder was 39.8% and the rate of forensic psychiatric care was 32.3%, compared with 56.2% and 49.3%, respectively, in the overall FPI cohort; thus, these rates were lower among participants than in the overall population. Preliminary offender characteristics indicated that 1 in 5 participants had committed lethal violence, 7 in 10 had previous contact with psychiatric services, and 27% had contact with psychiatric services within the 2 weeks preceding the index offense; the most common diagnoses were personality disorders, substance use disorders, and schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and the mean full-scale IQ measured using the WAIS-IV was 88 ± 14.1. The distribution of offense types was as follows: violent crime (including threats), 91.7%; lethal violence (including attempts), 21.8%; lethal violence (excluding attempts), 11.3%; arson, 13.0%; and sexual offenses, 10.5%. Previous contact with psychiatric care was reported for 42% in child and adolescent psychiatry and 69.6% in general psychiatry; 27.1% had contact within the 2 weeks preceding the offense, and 23.2% were taking prescribed antipsychotics at the time of the offense. In conclusion, the study was successfully conducted after overcoming initial legal and logistical challenges related to the high-security setting and the participants' detention; it established the first national clinical cohort of offenders undergoing FPI in Sweden (n = 362) and an interdisciplinary dataset. Follow-up studies are expected to enable the examination of risk, recidivism, and individual outcomes, with the cohort serving as a platform for research on risk assessment and crime prevention.

All WCP 2026 summaries