THE LONG-TERM DETENTION OF THOSE FOUND UNFIT TO PLEAD AND LEGALLY INSANE

Very little is known about patients who have been the subject of long-term detention as a result of a finding of unfitness to plead or legal insanity. In order to discover more about such patients permission was sought to examine Home Office files on all those who had been detained for 15 years of more up to December 1988. Permission was also obtained to interview a number of these patients who were held in three of the high security Special Hospitals. Two issues highlighted by the research were the use of 'common sense' criteria of dangerousness and the apparent wish of many of these patients to remain in hospital. The article concludes by calling for a ''consideration of the need for the continuing detention of this group of patients.