[A study of young offenders undergoing forensic psychiatric evaluation. There is a need of correctional care alternatives].

With effect from January 1, 1992, legislation regulating the practice of forensic psychiatry in Sweden, the Forensic Mental Care Act, was changed to meet more restrictive demands. A retrospective study of 15-20-year-old male offenders, investigated at the Dept. of Forensic Psychiatry in Stockholm during the period 1990-93, showed the proportion sentenced to forensic psychiatric care to have decreased by 21 per cent since the introduction of the new legislation. The majority of young offenders otherwise sentenced, mainly to correctional treatment, were suffering from personality disorders. Most of them had previously been in contact with the correctional and social service sectors. Several of them received prison sentences despite the fact that young offenders are not to be sent to prison without exceptional reasons. One such exceptional reason might be the lack of an appropriate alternative. A third treatment alternative is called for.