New developments in preventive detention in Germany.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

The present review focuses on forensic psychiatric aspects of new developments in preventive detention in Germany.

RECENT FINDINGS

After a short introduction to the history of preventive detention in Germany and its enacting in 1933, a survey is given about both main pathways in German penal code, penalty because of guilt after an offence by healthy prisoners and prevention because of dangerousness in healthy prisoners as well as in psychiatric ill persons having mentally ill offenders. Then, there are given a few examples of new developments of security laws: retroactive preventive detention, reservation of preventive detention, subsequent preventive detention, and its extension to young persons. The consequences in the practice of forensic psychiatry and their reflection in recent psychiatric literature are described and discussed.

SUMMARY

There is a broad consent between German forensic psychiatrists that the described changes in criminal law and the increasing application of preventive detention will intensify antiliberal tendencies not only within jurisdiction but also within forensic and general psychiatry.