Longest Hospital Detainee wants just a little bit more freedom

A lawyer urged the Arnhem Appeals Court in Amsterdam to consider alternative detention options for a 60-year-old criminal, the Netherland's longest-serving secure hospital detainee, so that the man could spend his remaining years with a greater degree of freedom.

[The Netherlands has a system of compulsory forensic psychiatric treatment, TBS, or terbeschikkingstelling van de staat ("to be put at the disposal of the state") Typically, the status of detainees is reviewed/renewed every two years. Under Dutch laws, someone detained under a TBS order, which is for violent or sexual criminals, can effectively be detained for life in a psychiatric hospital.]

Theo H was sentenced in 1960 at the age of 17 to eight months jail and TBS detention in a psychiatric institution. But H committed another offence seven years later and was sentenced to another 12 months jail and TBS treatment, and in 1985 he received another four months.

Lawyer Willem Anker said the 43 years of psychiatric treatment that H had undergone had proven ineffective, and that his client had earned the right for a greater deal of liberty than he receives at the Van Mesdagkliniek in Groningen.

Anker said his client had not committed an offence for 18 years and should come into consideration for an alternative form of "supervised living", Dutch associated press ANP reported. He said H had effectively received a life sentence without actually killing or raping someone.

This is a tough one. It is the worst of both worlds.

What you really want is months, not years of really effective treatment, not 43 years of ineffective treatment, wasting a life.