Hybrid orders: An analysis of their likely effects on sentencing practice and on forensic psychiatric practice and services

Abstract

The Reed Report on psychopathic disorder cautiously recommended the introduction of a new sentencing instrument, the ‘hybrid order’ (HO). By joining a hospital order to a prison tariff, it argued that the HO might overcome psychiatric resistance to taking psychopaths for treatment. The Home Office now proposes hybrid orders for all mentally disordered offenders, including the seriously mentally ill, on criteria of appropriate punishment and public protection. In the absence of restrictive sentencing guidelines from the Court of Appeal such orders will be widely used and will alter the relationship between psychiatry and the courts. The proposal challenges the ‘health need' basis of judicial consideration of mentally disordered offenders and replaces it with an acceptance of the punishment of the mentally ill. It is the most important challenge to confront modern British forensic psychiatry.

Key Words:

• hybrid order
• punishment
• public protection
• psychopathy