Prisoners with reduced criminal responsibility stand out based on their rates of hospitalisation during their sentences.

Purpose: Globally, health problems are very common among prisoners. A mental state examination aims to help in recognising psychiatric problems among offenders and the possible association of these psychiatric issues with their committed crime. The legal-medical term "reduced criminal responsibility" refers to a weakened sense of reality and the ability to control one's behaviour because of compromised mental health and without an evaluated need for forensic psychiatric hospitalisation.

Partners in crime: A 21-year cohort comparison of people who commit serious crimes together with those who act alone.

Background: Perpetrators who act together violently occur frequently in police and media discussions, but are rarely the focus of forensic psychiatric research.

Aims: We aimed to characterise people who act together when committing a serious crime and to map the frequency of such crimes over 21 years in Finland.

Methods: Data for the study were retrieved from the national database of forensic psychiatric examinations for the period 2000-2020, with reports on file for nearly all people charged with serious criminal offences in the country.

Effectiveness of non-medical health worker-led counselling on psychological distress: a randomized controlled trial in rural Nepal.

Background: An essential strategy to increase coverage of psychosocial treatments globally is task shifting to non-medical counsellors, but evidence on its effectiveness is still scarce. This study evaluates the effectiveness of lay psychosocial counselling among persons with psychological distress in a primary health care setting in rural Nepal.

Methods: A parallel randomized controlled trial in Dang, rural Nepal (NCT03544450).

Imprisonment and diagnostic delay among male offenders with schizophrenia.

Background: Psychotic symptoms are common among prisoners, a diagnosis of schizophrenia probably more likely than in the general population; however, less is known about the extent to which prisoners may show a different course of illness.

Aims: The aims of the study were to characterise schizophrenic male offenders and to compare their age at diagnosis with that of people with schizophrenia in general mental health services in Finland.

Methods: The study population comprised all the male offenders in Finland who left the national psychiatric prison hospital between 1 January 2003 and 31 December 2006 with an International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Edition, diagnosis of schizophrenia.