[Is violence of psychiatric patients a real danger for "open door psychiatry"?]

The public opinion frequently attributes a dangerous behavior to the severe mentally disturbed. Is there really an overrepresentation of the mentally sick among violent delinquents? In a retrospective epidemiological study performed in the Federal Republic of Germany the personality features, mental status and criminal acts of 533 mentally disturbed violent delinquents were investigated and compared with the same data obtained in healthy violent delinquents, in mentally disturbed non-delinquents of the same diagnosis and in the general population of a responsible age. The most important results of this study are reported. The proportion of the mentally ill in the group of all violent delinquents of the decade examined (1955-1964) does not exceed the proportion of the mentally ill in the entire population so that the question asked above can clearly be answered with no. Factors increasing the risk of aggressive behavior in various groups of mental disturbances are discernible; the recognition of these factors should be followed by appropriate therapeutic measures.