Police want psychiatric clamp down

Press, 21 November 1987, Page 3

Police want psychiatric clamp down

PA Auckland People committed to psychiatric hospitals for murder can often reoffend when discharged because police are not aware they are back in the community, the national psychiatric inquiry has been told. A person found not guilty of murder on the ground of insanity could be reclassified and released with no follow-up action or supervision, said Detective Chief Inspector Bruce Scott of Police National Headquarters. The police were never informed by hospital authorities when a special patient was on trial leave or discharged, he said yesterday. “The awful truth is they cannot be returned to the community without a very real risk to the public,” he said.

Hospital authorities needed to tell police when special patients were dis-

charged in the interests of the victim’s safety. Committed patients could come and go from hospitals and delve in crime. They needed much stricter supervision.

Patients at the Lake Alice maximum security unit often walked out and hitch-hiked away and the police were expected to find them.

The police wanted to see secure units outside jail. Follow-up action by medical staff was needed also because patients discharged from hospital often failed to take the drugs they were prescribed to control their condition. The police wanted to

see a system introduced similar to the parole provisions which apply to people released from a sentence of life imprisonment. Former special patients could report regularly to qualified staff for assessment.