Treating not guilty by reason of insanity and socially dangerous subjects by community psychiatric services: an italian perspective

Abstract

Two years after the introduction of Italian forensic psychiatric reform, the new national residential network for subjects in security measures is now trying to develop and share common good practices of care, according to the contents of the new legislation. In this work, progressive steps of assessment and care of those admitted the new facilities named REMS will be illustrated, and the way new scenarios may impact on the role of the expert judgement in the Courts and their effects to forensic subjects’ referral. Some critical points fostered by the new system, including criteria for admissions and clinical ra-tionale for releases to lower levels of security, are discussed further in this work. It will be eventually described feasi ble so-lutions to overcome those issues, according to good evidence based practices.