Declining interest in forensic psychiatry: recent developments in Denmark.

It is postulated that there is a declining interest in forensic psychiatry in some countries, e.g. in Denmark. Can this decline be conclusively demonstrated? If so, what are the explanations? It is postulated that it is due not to decreasing interest on the part of psychiatrists, but to a change in attitude on the part of those who run the judicial system. It is further maintained that the essential cause of this development has been that psychiatry has not been able to offer generally acceptable explanations of crime, to say nothing of efficient means to fight crime. Trends in forensic psychiatry in Denmark, a country with 5 million inhabitants, may illustrate some of these problems.