Hostname: page-component-65f69f4695-6knnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-28T05:39:31.230Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Offending prior to first psychiatric contact: a population-based register study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2012

H. Stevens ,
E. Agerbo ,
K. Dean ,
M. Nordentoft ,
P. R. Nielsen  and
P. B. Mortensen
H. Stevens*
Affiliation:
National Centre for Register-Based Research, Aarhus University, Denmark
E. Agerbo
Affiliation:
National Centre for Register-Based Research, Aarhus University, Denmark
K. Dean
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK
M. Nordentoft
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark
P. R. Nielsen
Affiliation:
National Centre for Register-Based Research, Aarhus University, Denmark
P. B. Mortensen
Affiliation:
National Centre for Register-Based Research, Aarhus University, Denmark
*
*Address for correspondence: H. Stevens, M.Sc., National Centre for Register-Based Research, Aarhus University, Taasingegade 1, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. (Email: hs@ncrr.dk)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

There is a well-established association between psychotic disorders and subsequent offending but the extent to which those who develop psychosis might have a prior history of offending is less clear. Little is known about whether the association between illness and offending exists in non-psychotic disorders. The aim of this study was to determine whether the association between mental disorder and offending is present prior to illness onset in psychotic and non-psychotic disorders.

Method

In a nested case-control study, cases (n=101 890) with a first psychiatric contact during the period 1995 to 2006 were identified and matched by age and gender to population-based controls (n=2 236 195). Exposure was defined as prior criminal and violent offending.

Results

Males with one offence had an incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 2.32 [95% confidence interval (CI) 2.26–2.40] for psychiatric admission whereas two or more convictions yielded an IRR of 4.97 (95% CI 4.83–5.11). For violent offending the associations were stronger and IRRs of 3.97 (95% CI 3.81–4.12) and 6.18 (95% CI 5.85–6.52) were found for one and several offences respectively. Estimates for females were of a similar magnitude. The pattern was consistent across most diagnostic subgroups, although some variability in effect sizes was seen, and persisted after adjustment for substance misuse and socio-economic status (SES).

Conclusions

A prior history of offending is present in almost one in five patients presenting to mental health services, which makes it an important issue for clinicians to consider when assessing current and future risks and vulnerabilities.

Keywords

Crimeepidemiologyforensic psychiatry

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 42 , Issue 12 , December 2012 , pp. 2673 - 2684
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Agerbo, E, Byrne, M, Eaton, WW, Mortensen, PB (2004). Marital and labor market status in the long run in schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 61, 28–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andersen, HS, Sestoft, D, Lillebaek, T, Gabrielsen, G, Kramp, P (1996). Prevalence of ICD-10 psychiatric morbidity in random samples of prisoners on remand. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 19, 61–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arseneault, L, Moffitt, TE, Caspi, A, Taylor, PJ, Silva, PA (2000). Mental disorders and violence in a total birth cohort: results from the Dunedin study. Archives of General Psychiatry 57, 979–986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birmingham, L, Gray, J, Mason, D, Grubin, D (2000). Mental illness at reception into prison. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health 10, 77–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, PA, Mednick, SA, Hodgins, S (2000). Major mental disorders and criminal violence in a Danish birth cohort. Archives of General Psychiatry 57, 494–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooke, D, Taylor, C, Gunn, J, Maden, A (1996). Point prevalence of mental disorder in unconvicted male prisoners in England and Wales. British Medical Journal 313, 1524–1527.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cantor-Graae, E, Selten, JP (2005). Schizophrenia and migration: a meta-analysis and review. American Journal of Psychiatry 162, 12–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clayton, D, Hills, M (1993). Statistical Models in Epidemiology. Oxford University Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Corneau, M, Lanctot, N (2004). Mental health outcomes of adjudicated males and females: the aftermath of juvenile delinquency and problem behaviour. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health 14, 251–262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Danmarks Statistik (1991). IDA – an integrated database for labour market research. Main report [in Danish]. Danmarks Statistik: København.Google Scholar
Dean, K, Stevens, H, Mortensen, PB, Murray, RM, Walsh, E, Pedersen, CB (2010). Full spectrum of psychiatric outcomes among offspring with parental history of mental disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry 67, 822–829.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dean, K, Walsh, E, Morgan, C, Demjaha, A, Dazzan, P, Morgan, K, Lloyd, T, Fearon, P, Jones, PB, Murray, RM (2007). Aggressive behaviour at first contact with services: findings from the AESOP First Episode Psychosis Study. Psychological Medicine 37, 547–557.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Elbogen, EB, Johnson, SC (2009). The intricate link between violence and mental disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry 66, 152–161.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fazel, S, Danesh, J (2002). Serious mental disorder in 23 000 prisoners: a systematic review of 62 surveys. Lancet 359, 545–550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fazel, S, Gulati, G, Linsell, L, Geddes, JR, Grann, M (2009 a). Schizophrenia and violence: systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS Medicine 6, e1000120.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fazel, S, Langstrom, N, Hjern, A, Grann, M, Lichtenstein, P (2009 b). Schizophrenia, substance abuse, and violent crime. Journal of the American Medical Association 301, 2016–2023.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flango, VE, Sherbenou, EL (1976). Poverty, urbanization, and crime. Criminology 14, 331–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frisell, T, Lichtenstein, P, Langstrom, N (2011). Violent crime runs in families: a total population study of 12.5 million individuals. Psychological Medicine 41, 97–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grann, M, Fazel, S (2004). Substance misuse and violent crime: Swedish population study. British Medical Journal 328, 1233–1234.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hammen, C (2005). Stress and depression. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 1, 293–319.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hansen, SS, Munk-Jorgensen, P, Guldbaek, B, Solgard, T, Lauszus, KS, Albrechtsen, N, Borg, L, Egander, A, Faurholdt, K, Gilberg, A, Gosden, NP, Lorenzen, J, Richelsen, B, Weischer, K, Bertelsen, A (2000). Psychoactive substance use diagnoses among psychiatric in-patients. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 102, 432–438.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hodgins, S (1998). Epidemiological investigations of the associations between major mental disorders and crime: methodological limitations and validity of the conclusions. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 33 (Suppl. 1), S29–S37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hodgins, S, Calem, M, Shimel, R, Williams, A, Harleston, D, Morgan, C, Dazzan, P, Fearon, P, Morgan, K, Lappin, J, Zanelli, J, Reichenberg, A, Jones, P (2011). Criminal offending and distinguishing features of offenders among persons experiencing a first episode of psychosis. Early Intervention in Psychiatry 5, 15–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jakobsen, KD, Frederiksen, JN, Hansen, T, Jansson, LB, Parnas, J, Werge, T (2005). Reliability of clinical ICD-10 schizophrenia diagnoses. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry 59, 209–212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jones, RM, Van den Bree, M, Ferriter, M, Taylor, PJ (2010). Childhood risk factors for offending before first psychiatric admission for people with schizophrenia: a case-control study of high security hospital admissions. Behavioral Sciences and the Law 28, 351–365.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, Hettema, JM, Butera, F, Gardner, CO, Prescott, CA (2003). Life event dimensions of loss, humiliation, entrapment, and danger in the prediction of onsets of major depression and generalized anxiety. Archives of General Psychiatry 60, 789–796.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kessing, LV (1998). Validity of diagnoses and other clinical register data in patients with affective disorder. European Psychiatry 13, 392–398.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
King, G, Zeng, L (2002). Estimating risk and rate levels, ratios and differences in case-control studies. Statistics in Medicine 21, 1409–1427.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kyvsgaard, B (1998). The Criminal Career, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
Large, MM, Nielssen, O (2011). Violence in first-episode psychosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Schizophrenia Research 125, 209–220.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laub, J, Sampson, R (2006). Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives: Delinquent Boys to Age 70. Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA.Google Scholar
Logan, C, Johnstone, L (2010). Personality disorder and violence: making the link through risk formulation. Journal of Personality Disorders 24, 610–633.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mednick, BR, Baker, RL, Carothers, LE (1990). Patterns of family instability and crime: the association of timing of the family's disruption with subsequent adolescent and young adult criminality. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 19, 201–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munk-Jorgensen, P, Mortensen, PB (1997). The Danish Psychiatric Central Register. Danish Medical Bulletin 44, 82–84.Google ScholarPubMed
Munkner, R, Haastrup, S, Joergensen, T, Kramp, P (2003). The temporal relationship between schizophrenia and crime. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 38, 347–353.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murray, J, Irving, B, Farrington, DP, Colman, I, Bloxsom, CAJ (2010). Very early predictors of conduct problems and crime: results from a national cohort study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 51, 1198–1207.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Niemi, LT, Suvisaari, JM, Tuulio-Henriksson, A, Lönnqvist, JK (2003). Childhood developmental abnormalities in schizophrenia: evidence from high-risk studies. Schizophrenia Research 60, 239–258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pedersen, CB, Gotzsche, H, Moller, JO, Mortensen, PB (2006). The Danish Civil Registration System. A cohort of eight million persons. Danish Medical Bulletin 53, 441–449.Google ScholarPubMed
Pedersen, CB, Mortensen, PB (2001). Evidence of a dose-response relationship between urbanicity during upbringing and schizophrenia risk. Archives of General Psychiatry 58, 1039–1046.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Phung, TKT, Andersen, BB, Hogh, P, Kessing, LV, Mortensen, PB, Waldemar, G (2007). Validity of dementia diagnoses in the Danish hospital registers. Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders 24, 220–228.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Retz, W, Rösler, M (2007). The relation of ADHD and violent aggression: what can we learn from epidemiological and genetic studies? International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 32, 235–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rigsadvokatens Meddelelse (2007). Processing of criminal cases concerning mentally deviant offenders and persons covered by section 70 of the Penal Code [in Danish]. Rigsadvokaten: København.Google Scholar
Robbins, PC, Monahan, J, Silver, E (2003). Mental disorder, violence, and gender. Law and Human Behavior 27, 561–571.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosen, JL, Miller, TJ, D'Andrea, JT, McGlashan, TH, Woods, SW (2006). Comorbid diagnoses in persons meeting criteria for the schizophrenia prodrome. Schizophrenia Research 80, 124–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slavich, GM, O'Donovan, A, Epel, ES, Kemeny, ME (2010). Black sheep get the blues: a psychobiological model of social rejection and depression. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 35, 39–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Dorn, R, Volavka, J, Johnson, N (2012). Mental disorder and violence: is there a relationship beyond substance use? Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 47, 487–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, C, Mullen, P, Burgess, P, Palmer, S, Ruschena, D, Browne, C (1998). Serious criminal offending and mental disorder: case linkage study. British Journal of Psychiatry 172, 477–484.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
WHO (1967). Manual of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-8). World Health Organization: Geneva.Google Scholar
WHO (1992). The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders. Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Guidelines. World Health Organization: Geneva.Google Scholar