Intelligenzgeminderte Rechtsbrecher im Maßregelvollzug

Forensic patients with intellectual disabilities have so far received little attention which is reflected in the comparatively briefly written chapters in the standard textbooks and also the low scientific interest in this patient group. There are only few therapeutic concepts and even less information on their effectiveness. This article presents the Christophorus Clinic in Münster which was the first forensic institution in Germany to specialize in these patients. The institution incorporates 54 treatment places and started operating on 3 June 2011. In addition to the known fact that a therapy concept must (further) develop over the years, during the first year of operation some aspects have arisen which have cristallized as problem areas specific for this patient group, which are discussed.     

Standards nichtstrafrechtlicher psychiatrischer Begutachtung

The introduction of the certificate for forensic psychiatry of the German Association of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics (DGPPN) in 2000 was a significant contribution to raising awareness of the formal and substantive requirements for forensic psychiatric evaluations and to develop a systematic quality improvement in forensic psychiatric expert services. By the special dominance of the certification in the field of penal law assessment, this proved to be problematic for many predominantly non-penal experts. This led to a requirement to develop a qualification for the non-penal expert opinions. In particular the increasing specialization of the psychiatric disciplines and the diversity of the legal issues and framework require a continuing education in the field of non-penal psychiatric assessments. Substantive and formal requirements are discussed and a continuous process of quality improvement and assurance is outlined. Last but not least a plea is made for close interdisciplinary exchange with the jurisprudence and the courts in the context of quality circles.     

Beurteilung von Einsichts- und Steuerungsfähigkeit bei Personen mit geistiger Behinderung im Strafverfahren

Reference is made to the content determination of the entry term “mental retardation” in the criminal responsibility paragraphs of the Penal Code. The forensic relevance of intellectual disability is low. Forensic effects of retarded ability for reasoning usually fail due to the understanding in question. A diminution of criminal responsibility can if necessary be justified by a reduction in accountability.     

Prosodic awareness and punctuation ability in adult readers

We examined the relationship between two metalinguistic tasks: prosodic awareness and punctuation ability. Specifically, we investigated whether adults' ability to punctuate was related to the degree to which they are aware of and able to manipulate prosody in spoken language. English-speaking adult readers (n = 115) were administered a receptive and a productive measure of prosodic awareness, a measure of their baseline knowledge of punctuation, and a productive measure of punctuation ability, in addition to control measures. Prosodic awareness emerged as a robust predictor of adults' ability to punctuate, over and above the influence of their punctuation knowledge, reading comprehension, and working memory.