The management, care and treatment of insanity acquittees presents difficult legal, medical and moral concerns. In 1978 the State of Oregon established the Psychiatric Security Review Board with a mandate to ensure appropriate care and control of individuals who have successfully asserted insanity defenses and are considered to present substantial danger to others. The Oregon system provides an opportunity to study the operation of the PSRB and the hospital and community psychiatric services designed to gurad public safety while ameliorating the mental and social disabilities of the insanity acquittee. The study is organized into three components. The first will focus on a descriptive study of the subject characteristics of the PSRB population (n=710) to date and on the decisions made by the PSRB. More variables, as well as more subjects, will be included in this data set than in our previous studies. The second component will focus on a subsample of psychotic subjects assigned to PSRB after felony crimes (n=110) who were released to the three major community treatment programs in the PSRB system. We will collect data on the kinds and amount of treatment received by these clients. The third component involves inteviewing conditionally released PSRB clients, again those with a psychotic diagnosis and a felony range crime in the same three major community treatment programs. They will be interviewed in order to assess their quality of life, social adjustment and mental status. They and their case managers or therapists will be interviewed while they are in the community and for those revoked, at the time of revocation. The results will have policy implications for the development of effective systems for managing insanity acquittees in other jurisdictions.
| Reichlin, S M; Bloom, J D; Williams, M H (1990) Post-Hinckley insanity reform in Oregon. Bull Am Acad Psychiatry Law 18:405-12 |
