Parole board wanted for psych, review

Press, 29 June 1983, Page 4

Parole board wanted for psych, review

PA Wellington A type pf parole-board review of psychiatric special patients before discharge was suggested to the Donaldson Commission of Inquiry by the police yesterday. Chief Inspector Donald Mowat, in submissions for the police, said a release might be better based on the recommendation of a review board with a judicial, rather than psychiatric function. The commission chaired by Mr Paul Temm, Q.C., is inquiring into the discharge of lan David Donaldson from a psychiatric hospital. Suspected of murder, he was found dead in his booby-trapped car on April 26. Mr Mowat said the police proposal would provide for the consideration of the public interest and remove the burden of risk from the shoulders of psychiatrists. He likened a review panel, with a judge as a member and a statutory function, to prison parole boards. “Special patients, or committed patients who were formerly special patients, may be considered to be in a similar position to prison inmates and therefore the decision when it is proper to release or discharge them may be better based on the recommendation of a review board with a judicial function rather than recommendation of psychiatric opinions,” Mr Mowat said. He said a panel might also have the power to call for a report from the police, providing an opportunity to hear further information on the patient’s criminal history and risk of further offending. The police also asked the commission to consider

whether the law which defines the mentally disordered was adequate. Mr Mowat said it seemed patients suffering from a mental disorder with a high predictability of committing serious crimes of violence or sexual assault presented psychiatrists with difficulties in defining whether they were mentally ill. The police were also concerned that though they had information about convicted people who had spent varying periods of time in psychiatric hospitals, the relevant dates of admission and discharge generally could not be determined. A selective system enabling the police to identify dangerous mental patients from the Wanganui computer was proposed by a Deputy Secretary for Justice, Mr B. J. Cameron, who urged a new category for mental patients and advocated a change in procedures. Recommendations by the police to put special psychiatric patients’ files on the computer were countered by the department. “It is our belief that wide and indiscriminate access to patients’ histories and movements would be quite unnecessary were a more selective identification system implemented,” Mr Cameron said. Giving the new label “restricted” to psychiatric patients would identify previous or committed patients after release, Mr Cameron said. Such patients would be subject to supervision in the community and could be recalled. A flag system should be introduced for them on the Wanganui computer’s “person of interest” category to alert police, he said.