Samenvatting

In the Netherlands, a pretrial forensic mental health report (FMHR) can be requested to inform the court whether a mental disorder was present at the time of the offense, whether this disorder affected behaviour and decision-making at the time of the offense, how this disorder may affect future behaviour and advise on possible treatment measures. However, a substantial number of defendants refuse to cooperate with FMHRs to avoid being sentenced to a forensic psychiatric hospital for at least two years (TBS). With an experimental vignette study among law and criminology students (N = 355), we tested whether TBS is less likely for an uncooperative defendant than for a cooperative defendant. Second, we tested whether an uncooperative defendant receives a longer prison sentence when TBS is not imposed. Results showed that refusing to cooperate reduces the likelihood of a TBS measure and that this is compensated by a slightly longer prison sentence. Extending international research, we explored whether type of disorder and recidivism risk in an FMHR had an effect on sentencing. Results show that schizophrenia led to TBS more often than antisocial personality disorder regardless of recidivism risk. Type of disorder or recidivism risk did not substantially affect the prison sentence regardless of whether TBS had been imposed. Recommendations for research and practice are discussed.