Abstract

This article reviews the laws in Sweden concerning mentally disordered offenders. It also contains some figures on the relationship between mentally disordered offenders and other offenders sentenced to prison. The rules in Sweden are very different from other countries in that the responsibility concept has been abolished and thus there is no acquittal on a psychiatric basis. Before 1965, when the new Swedish Criminal Code (Brottsbalken) came into force, the principle aim of a Swedish forensic psychiatric examination was to establish whether the offender was fully responsible and therefore culpable when the crime was committed. If the offender was found to be "in his right mind, " he was held to be accountable for his ac-tions and was punished in accordance with the law. But if, for instance, a per-son was found to be suffering from in-sanity at the time of the crime, the pro-visions of the Penal Code allowed that he could not be held responsible for his criminal acts and must be acquitted. The mentally ill offender was not to be pun-ished but committed to a mental hospi-tal for treatment. Psychosis and severe mental defi-ciency were considered suficient reason for acquittal, along with four other dis-ordered mental states included in Memo