Violent Behaviour and Psychiatric Diagnosis in Female Offenders

Abstract

This retrospective study attempts to describe a cohort of female offenders admitted to the Forensic Unit at St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital between January 1981 and December 1985. During this period there were 91 female admissions; 47 were sent from courts on a Warrant of Remand for psychiatric assessment, 30 under the Warrant of the Lieutenant Governor, 5 under Probation Orders, and the remaining 9 were sent from prison or a detention centre after assessment by a physician. The study has yielded some interesting findings with respect to the relationship between violent crime and particular psychiatric diagnoses, age at admission and type of crime committed, and age at admission and psychiatric diagnoses. We found that an early age of onset of criminal behaviour tends to be associated with personality disorder, while women over 30 were often diagnosed as having a psychotic disorder. We did not, however, find any association between age at first crime and age at index admission with the type of crime committed.