Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 20, 2026

Development of a Virtual Reality Assessment of Everyday Living Skills
Published on: April 23, 2014
Registered criminality and sanctioning of schizophrenia patients
Runa Munkner1, Soeren Haastrup, Torben Joergensen
1Psychiatric Centre Glostrup, Glostrup University Hospital, Glostrup, Denmark. runa.munkner@dadlnet.dk
Background:
Patients with schizophrenia have been shown to have an increased risk of criminality, especially violent crimes.
Aims:
The aim of the current study was to describe the pattern of crimes committed by Danish patients with schizophrenia and examine the sanctions given for crimes in relation to the different periods in the patients' lives: not yet known to the psychiatric hospital system, known to the system but not yet diagnosed with schizophrenia, and after being diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Methods:
Information from the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register was correlated with data from the Danish National Crime Register.
Results:
One of the more prominent findings was that 16% of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia receive a prison sentence or a suspended prison sentence, despite the fact that Denmark is a co-signatory of the European Prison Rules and should treat, rather than imprison, individuals with schizophrenia.
Conclusion:
The findings suggest that greater alertness is needed in the judicial system for individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Related Concept Videos
Psychological and Sociocultural Causes of Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Personality Disorders: Paranoid and Schizoid
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Paranoid personality disorder is...
Psychosurgery
Historical Development of Psychosurgery
In the 1930s, Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz introduced a surgical procedure designed...
Positive Symptoms of Schizophrenia: Hallucinations and Delusions
Thought Disorders
Disorganized and unusual thought processes mark thought disorders in schizophrenia. One key feature is disorganized speech, where an individual's conversation includes loosely...
Biological Causes of Schizophrenia
Genetic Factors in Schizophrenia
The genetic basis of schizophrenia is strongly supported by family and twin studies.
