[Asylum for curing or securing? The confinement of forensic patients as a challenge of asylum psychiatry in Imperial Germany].

Asylum for curing or securing? The confinement of forensic patients as a challenge of asylum psychiatry in Imperial Germany. In Imperial Germany psychiatrists sought to give their asylums the character of modern medical hospitals. Due to the increase of insanity defence these efforts were obstructed by the high number of inmates with a criminal background. Special departments for mentally ill criminals were founded both in asylums and in prisons. But the clientele was not welcome in any of these institutions. Thus, there was a high fluctuation between prisons and asylums. A new definition of criminal responsibility was needed. In order to keep criminals out of their hospitals psychiatrists developed the medical concept of psychopathy referring to a mental defect without lack of responsibility. On the other hand penal law reformers plead to introduce preventive measures, such as security confinement, into the criminal law book. Since the resolution of the 'law against habitual criminals' in November 1933 judges are allowed to sentence mentally ill offenders to indefinite confinement in psychiatric institutions.