Criminal responsibility in sexual homicide perpetrators

Objective: Evaluation of criteria for criminal responsibility, esp. in paraphilias and personality disorders. Methods: We compared sexual murderers with diminished responsibility or not-guilty for reasons of insanity (n = 73) and those held fully responsible (n = 61) regarding psychiatric disorders, signs of severe paraphilias, level of personality structure (using Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnostics) and offence related criteria. Results: Sexual murderers found as diminished responsible or not-guilty, especially those detained in forensic psychiatric hospitals, showed more signs of a progressive sadistic development and lower levels of personality structure. Offence related criteria that are regarded as not supporting a diminished capacity plea (purposeful actions, long duration, complex, stepwise course of the offence) were found more frequent in those offenders that were detained in forensic hospitals. Conclusions: Signs for severity of paraphilias and personality disorders are useful in decisions about criminal responsibility. Criteria regarding purposeful course of action appear not to be adequate for the assessment of paraphilic sexual offenders.