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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Forensic Psychiatry
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1556987
This article is part of the Research Topic Women Offenders: The Challenge of Evidence-based Practice in Correctional and Forensic Mental Health Services View all articles
Recidivism rates of female offenders discharged from forensic psychiatric treatment
Provisionally accepted
Juliane Mayer 1*
Viviane Wolf 2
Ivonne Steiner 3
Manuela Dudeck 3 Verena Klein 1
Judith Streb 3
Irina Franke 4- 1 kbo Kliniken des Bezirks Oberbayern, Munich, Germany
- 2 LVR Klinik Düsseldorf, Germany, Düsseldorf, Germany
- 3 University of Ulm, Ulm, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany
- 4 Psychiatric Services of Grisons, Chur, Switzerland
Recidivism rates comprise an essential component in comprehensive risk assessment and should reflect the specific reference group of the individual being assessed. For female offenders with mental disorders, recidivism rates are nearly nonexistent. The goal of this study is to report offense-and disorder-related recidivism rates for the understudied group of female offenders discharged from forensic psychiatric treatment. The sample consisted of 525 German patients released from placement orders according to Section 63 (n = 110) or 64 of the German Criminal Code (n = 415), indicating a diagnosis of a serious mental disorder or substance use disorder, respectively. In a retrospective design, we analyzed archived patient files as well as official reconviction records. With average times at risk of 8.5 and 5.3 years for each placement order, we observed general recidivism rates of 19 % and 46 %, and violent recidivism rates of 8 % and 12 %. Offense-related recidivism rates showed high numbers for property offenders, threateners, and arsonists. Disorder-related recidivism rates revealed that a comorbidity of schizophrenia and alcohol use disorder increased the risk of general reoffending eightfold (Exp[B] = 8.167; p = .025), while a comorbid substance use disorder and personality disorder heightened the violent recidivism risk fourfold (Exp[B] = 4.204; p = .029). Subgroup analysis of patients with substance use disorders indicated that treatment dropouts were about three times more likely to recidivate than patients who completed treatment (Exp[B] = 2.863; p < .001). The results provide rare recidivism data for risk assessment of female offenders with mental disorders and underscore the protective effect of forensic psychiatric treatment, including forensic aftercare, on recidivism.
Keywords: Recidivism rates, female offenders justice-involved women, forensic psychiatric treatment, Mental Disorders, substance use disorders, Risk Assessment
Received: 07 Jan 2025; Accepted: 26 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mayer, Wolf, Steiner, Dudeck, Klein, Streb and Franke. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Juliane Mayer, kbo Kliniken des Bezirks Oberbayern, Munich, Germany
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