Characteristics and re-offending outcomes of ‘limiting-term’ forensic patients found unfit to stand trial in New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

There are little published data on the characteristics or outcomes of offenders found unfit to stand trial who receive a ‘qualified finding of guilt’ in a Special Hearing in New South Wales (NSW) and are detained for a ‘limiting term’ (LT) under the supervision of the NSW Mental Health Review Tribunal (MHRT). We examined NSW MHRT records linked to re-offending data, to report on the characteristics and outcomes of 69 LT patients in a cohort spanning two decades. The most common diagnoses were schizophrenia (54%) and intellectual disability (33%). Patients were detained on average for 4.2 years, which is slightly shorter than the average maximum term imposed. Of the 55 people for whom criminal record data were available, 9.1% were charged with an offence during the first year post-release and 60% overall were charged for at least one post-release offence during a follow-up period ranging from 4.7 to 11.1 years.