The National Trajectory Project of Individuals Found Not Criminally Responsible on Account of Mental Disorder in Canada

Abstract

The majority of individuals found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder (NCRMD) in Canada spend some time in hospital before they are conditionally or absolutely (no conditions) discharged to the community by a legally mandated review board. By law, the decision to conditionally discharge an individual found NCRMD should be guided by the need to protect the public, the mental condition of the accused, and the other needs of the accused, especially regarding his/her community reintegration. At the time of this study, Canadian legislation and case law required that the review board disposition should be the "least onerous and least restrictive" possible for the accused. This means that, if there is no evidence that the person poses a significant risk to public safety, he/she must be released. However, the Canadian Criminal Code does not specify the criteria that must be considered when making this risk assessment. This leads to two questions. (1) What predicts review board dispositions? (2) To what extent do disposition determinations reflect evidence-based practices? The present study examined dynamic and static predictors of detention in custody, conditional discharge (CD), and absolute discharge (AD) dispositions among persons found NCRMD across the three largest provinces in Canada. The National Trajectory Project (NTP) examined men and women found NCRMD in British Columbia (BC), Québec (QC), and Ontario (ON) between May 2000 and April 2005, followed until December 2008. For the purposes of this study, individuals who had at least one hearing with a review board were extracted from the NTP dataset (N = 1794: QC = 1089, ON = 483, BC = 222). Over the course of the study, 6743 review board hearings were examined (QC = 3505, ON = 2185, BC = 1053). Despite advances in the risk assessment field, presentation of a comprehensive structured risk assessment to the review board was not the norm. Yet our findings suggest that review boards were taking into account a combination of empirically validated static and dynamic risk factors, as represented by the items of the

Factors Associated with Review Board Dispositions following Re‐hospitalization among Discharged Persons found Not Criminally Responsible

“…The NTP (https://ntp-ptn.org, ) was an archival, longitudinal study examining a cohort of Canadian individuals found NCRMD in British Columbia (BC), Ontario (ON), and Québec (QC). The full methodology is described in detail by Crocker and colleagues (Crocker et al, ; see also Charette et al, ; Crocker et al, ; Crocker et al, 2015a–c; Nicholls et al, ; Salem et al, ; Wilson et al, ). Details relevant to the current analyses are presented here.…”

Risk-Taking Behaviour and Criminal Responsibility: A Preliminary Investigation with Offenders and Forensic Psychiatric Patients

“…However, if these results are indicative of behavioural riskiness among individuals found NCRMD and CR, then the forensic psychiatric and offender populations may overlap more greatly than initially anticipated in their rehabilitative needs. Indeed, one study found that up to 47% of NCRMD individuals had at least one prior conviction [8]. This would indicate that many forensic psychiatric patients have also been offenders in the past, and so the forensic psychiatric population may not be easily separated from the offender population in terms of their overall risky behaviour.…”

“…In the forensic psychiatric system, 70.9% of individuals are diagnosed with a psychotic spectrum disorder, making this cluster of diagnoses the most common in this population [8]. These disorders are also associated with risk factors like poor family relationships, poor social support, social isolation [9], poor performance in school/work [10], and substance use [11], all of which are criminal risk-factors, but less strongly associated with criminal behaviour than the "Big 4" risk factors.…”

Sanctionner les (non-) coupables. Préciser la disposition de non-responsabilité criminelle

“…Des études dévoilent que plus de la moitié des accusés NRC relèvent de la commission d'examen durant plus de cinq ans et le quart d'entre eux durant plus de dix ans (Crocker, Seto, Nicholls et Côté, 2013 ;Latimer et Lawrence, 2006). Sans prendre en compte le temps durant lequel les personnes reconnues NRC ont relevé de la commission d'examen, ces dernières sont moins susceptibles de récidiver que les prisonniers d'un établisse-ment correctionnel.…”

“…Sans prendre en compte le temps durant lequel les personnes reconnues NRC ont relevé de la commission d'examen, ces dernières sont moins susceptibles de récidiver que les prisonniers d'un établisse-ment correctionnel. En fait, le taux de récidivisme pour les personnes reconnues NRC oscille entre 7,5 et 10,4 % (après une période défi nie comme trois ans) alors qu'il oscille entre 41 et 44 % pour les prisonniers des établissements du système correctionnel (deux ans après leur libé-ration) (Centre de toxicomanie et de santé mentale, 2013 ; Crocker et al, 2013). Les recherches manifestent donc à quel point il est peu probable pour les personnes diagnostiquées avec des troubles mentaux de commettre une infraction suivant leur libération, particulièrement un crime violent.…”