The Characteristics of Patients with Intellectual Disabilities Held in Forensic Asylums in Norway: 1915–1987

A significant number of patients with intellectual disability (ID) were admitted to forensic mental health asylums during the period 1915–1987. Many of these patients stayed for more than a decade, because of previous offending behaviour. We investigated the daily lives of 262 patients with an ID using casebooks. Two of the patients were studied more in detail. The available documents describe most of these patients as sociable, well-behaved and socially engaged although they missed having contacts outside the hospital. Long-stay patients were studied more in detail