[Difficult and/or dangerous mental patients: criminologic survey on 547 subjects submitted to the maximum security ward at Cadillac between 1967 and 1976].

The writers of the article submit the results of a medico-legal analysis of 547 files of mental patients, some of whom are hard cases and others are dangerous. All the patients are males. Each of them was interned by order of civil prefect in the maximum security ward of the C.H.S. de Cadillac Mental Centre. These files cover the period between 1967 and 1976. First global study was made of all the patients whose average age, on their admission to the above-mentioned medical centre, was 33 years. The results of the study can be summed up as follows: a) Nosologically, three important groups of patients are distinguishable. Together, they constitute 85% of all the cases studied. 28% of the cases are psychotics, of whom 25,8% are chronic psychotics (14,8% schizophrenics; 7,7%, paranoiacs); 40,5% of the cases are psychopaths suffering from psychic imbalance; and finally, 16,4% of the cases are morons (debiles). b) According to their delinquent behaviour the cases fall into the following categories: 1) 47% of the cases committed acts of physical aggression (17,6%, murder or attempts at murder; 20% severe aggression; 6,2%, rape or attempts at rape). 2) 42,1% of the cases committed crimes against property (38%, theft; 4%, arson). 3) 10,6% of the cases showed anti-social behaviour (6,5%, threats of murder; 3,5% alcoholism, fugues, etc.). c) The origin of the studied population was as follows: 22% of them were sent to the maximum security ward from prisons; some of them were sent here as irresponsible and some as a result of abnormal and disturbed behaviour. 78% of them were sent to the maximum security settings from psychiatric centres: of whom 8% from other security settings and 70% from ordinary psychiatric centres [50% of whom because they had run away (fugues) and 50% of whom as a result of aggressive behaviour which was, in certain case, accompanied by threats of murder]...