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©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatr. Mar 22, 2017; 7(1): 8-11
Published online Mar 22, 2017. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v7.i1.8
Differences between British and Japanese perspectives on forensic mental health systems: A preliminary study
Akihiro Shiina, Aika Tomoto, Soichiro Omiya, Aiko Sato, Masaomi Iyo, Yoshito Igarashi
Akihiro Shiina, Division of Medical Treatment and Rehabilitation, Chiba University Center for Forensic Mental Health, Chiba 260-8670, Japan
Aika Tomoto, Yoshito Igarashi, Division of Law and Psychiatry, Chiba University Center for Forensic Mental Health, Chiba 260-8670, Japan
Soichiro Omiya, Social Psychiatry and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8577, Japan
Aiko Sato, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba 260-8670, Japan
Masaomi Iyo, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba 260-8670, Japan
Author contributions: All the authors contributed to the manuscript.
Supported by The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan from a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, entitled “Tagai-koui wo sita seishin-shougai-sha no shakai-fukki-katei no kokusai-hikaku to iryou-keizai-teki-bunseki (International comparison of the process of rehabilitation and medical economic analysis of mentally disordered offenders)”.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this manuscript.
Data sharing statement: There is no additional data available other than in this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Akihiro Shiina, MD, PhD, Division of Medical Treatment and Rehabilitation, Chiba University Center for Forensic Mental Health, Inohana 1-8-1, Chiba 260-8670, Japan. olreia@yahoo.co.jp
Telephone: +81-43-2227171
Received: July 9, 2016
Peer-review started: July 14, 2016
First decision: September 12, 2016
Revised: October 2, 2016
Accepted: November 21, 2016
Article in press: November 22, 2016
Published online: March 22, 2017
AIM
To clarify the differences in views on forensic mental health (FMH) systems between the United Kingdom and Japan.
METHODS
We conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with six leading forensic psychiatrists. Based on a discussion by the research team, we created an interview form. After we finished conducting all the interviews, we qualitatively analyzed their content.
RESULTS
In the United Kingdom the core domain of FMH was risk assessment and management; however, in Japan, the core domain of FMH was psychiatric testimony. In the United Kingdom, forensic psychiatrists were responsible for ensuring public safety, and psychopathy was identified as a disease but deemed as not suitable for medical treatment. On the other hand, in Japan, psychopathy was not considered a mental illness.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, there are considerable differences between the United Kingdom and Japan with regard to the concepts of FMH. Some ideas taken from both cultures for better FMH practice were suggested.
Core tip: Several differences regarding the policy and perspective in forensic mental health have found between British and Japanese forensic psychiatrists; psychopathy is deemed as a mental illness in the United Kingdom, but not in Japan; British forensic psychiatrists considered to be responsible for ensuring public safety, whereas Japanese do not think so.
