Trajectories and Outcomes of Those Not Criminally Responsible on Account of Mental Disorder through a Canadian Forensic System

Abstract

Canadians adjudicated Not Criminally Responsible on Account of Mental Disorder (NCR) are detained in forensic psychiatric hospitals under a jurisdictional review board (RB) governed by the Canadian Criminal Code. The custody and management of NCR populations are administered independently across jurisdictions despite being federally legislated, and research is limited on how RBs may vary in their efforts to balance public safety and social reintegration across cases, settings, and provinces. To this end, the trajectories and outcomes were investigated in one understudied Canadian RB system on a sample of NCR individuals (n = 109) and compared to other provincial practices. A retrospective longitudinal design was employed to track an NCR cohort between 2005 and 2010 until 2015. Results demonstrated that the provincial RB aligned their operational and management practices with federal legislation, but unique deviations contributed to novel NCR trajectories and outcomes under RB supervision that were conservative relative to provincial partners. Dispositions varied as a function of risk level and were informed by clinician recommendations. Detention length differences were observed between ancestral lines, as the White ancestral group spent an average of three years less in custody than the Nonwhite ancestral group despite limited differences in demographic, clinical, and criminogenic profiles. Further research is required on NCR trajectories and outcomes across other understudied provinces and the role of forensic risk instruments in assisting with the consistent application of federal law.

Keywords:

• Forensic mental health
• not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder
• mental disorder
• Canadian review board
• recidivism

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council under Grant (752-2017-2244). Special acknowledgements to our research assistant, Micaela Strelau, BSW, RSW, for her dedication to data collection.