Criminals fear pyschiatric assessment
Tuesday 28 July 2009
An increasing number of suspects are refusing to cooperate with psychiatric examinations out of fear that they may be sentenced to compulsory detention in a special prison hospital (TBS), said Huibert Donker of the prosecution service in an interview with Radio 1 on Tuesday.
More than half of those charged with crimes will not allow themselves to be assessed by the prosecution’s psychiatric centre (Pieter Baan Centrum) in Utrecht, said Donker.
Many are afraid that cooperation with the centre may lead them to being locked up for ever, he said.
But Donker claimed this fear is unfounded as judges have to review a TBS order every two years.
Convicted criminals who are given TBS (on top of a prison sentence) are treated by psychiatrists until the judge is convinced that they are safe to be returned in society.
Donker said society is at risk if this category of criminals are let back onto the streets without treatment.
© DutchNews.nl
Readers' comments
Comments have been closed for this article.
|
Sunday: Above zero in most places with light snow or sleet. Light frost at night. Similar on Monday
What a wonderful adaptation of the Soviet system of silencing "undesirables" by locking them up in "psychiatric" institutions.
Arrest them for anything, then lock them up indefinitely until "cured".
Somewhere the Dutch justice system seems to have found some "psychiatrists" living in a time warp where the fact that involuntary psychiatric treatment doesn't work has yet to be discovered.
Is Dutch institutional psychiatry by any chance dominated by doctors from totalitarian countries (Egypt, Pakistan, etc.) as it is in Canada?
By otropogo | July 28, 2009 6:53 PM