Recidivism among rapists in Sweden who have undergone forensic psychiatric examinations

Abstract

This study of rapists who underwent forensic psychiatric examinations in Stockholm 1985-8 (N = 44) shows that rapists of non-European backgrounds were less likely than Swedish rapists to commit recidivist crimes. The non-European rapists differed completely from other rapists with regard to a number of important social and criminological factors, but not with regard to psychiatric morbidity.

This means that when evaluating the crime-preventive effect of various sanctions on rapists, greater attention than has previously been the case ought to be paid to how many immigrants there are in the sample under study, and from where they come. The results indicate that so-called culture conflicts involving foreign men in Sweden may be of relevance in this context.