Insane Arsonists: An Early 21st Century Sample.

We studied all individuals (n = 41) who had been found not guilty by reason of insanity for arson and who were committed to a California state psychiatric hospital on October 1, 2016 in a cross-sectional analysis. This group of insane arsonists contained 33 (80.5%) males and eight (19.5%) females with a mean age at the time of the index arson of 35.9 years. At least 87.8% (n = 36) were considered to not have been participating in psychiatric treatment at the time of the index arson. Five (12.2%) of the insane arsonists had previously been found not guilty by reason of insanity for arson or had been convicted of having committed arson. Our findings suggest that lack of participation in psychiatric treatment was the most important factor in contributing to the index arson and the most important problem to be addressed in subsequent psychiatric treatment plans.

Examining the effectiveness of an intervention designed for the restoration of competency to stand trial.

This study examined the effectiveness of the Fitness Game, an intervention created for the restoration of competency to stand trial. Of 28 participants who completed either the experimental or control intervention at Hawai'i State Hospital (HSH), it was found that both groups had significant pretest to posttest improvements on Understanding and Appreciation subsets of the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT-CA). However, there was no statistically significant difference between the groups on competency measures, indicating that the Fitness Game was not significantly more effective at restoring competency than non-legal programming. In other words, individuals committed to a psychiatric hospital for care and treatment were as likely to improve as those receiving additional specialized competency restoration treatment.