In England and Wales, when people with a major mental disorder are thought to pose a high risk to others, particularly after conviction for a serious offense, they are generally detained in one of the three high security hospitals in England. Outcome studies of special hospital patients have been conducted over the last four decades. However, reconviction as an outcome measure has not been entirely satisfactory in these studies. Because the date allowed a lengthy follow-up period, the complete special hospital discharge cohort of 1984 was selected for this study. Both seriousness and frequency of reconvictions were taken into account. Seventy-four patients, or 38 percent, were convicted after discharge, 26 percent were convicted of serious offenses. Findings were consistent with previous studies. The finding that two-thirds of patients under the legal category of psychopathic disorder (PD) reoffend within 2 years was strong enough that development and evaluation of more intensive services for this group must be a priority. The logistic regression analysis confirmed that individuals with PD were seven times more likely than individuals with mental illness to be convicted of a serious offense after discharge. References