JUSTICE FOR ALL 4. Reduced recidivism: Halfway Houses have been shown to reduce recidivism rates among detainees. By providing transitional support, peer support, individualised care, and other resources, Halfway Houses can help individuals successfully reintegrate into the community and reduce the likelihood of reoffending. ANNEX 6: SLOVENIA OPEN FORENSIC WARD “The essential is invisible to the eye! And the essential is love. Now, how do you love someone who killed someone? It is necessary to understand this man and the circumstances and from birth onwards... and to understand his illness.” (Dr. Žagar 2023) To determine whether a person can be held criminally responsible, the judge may order a psychiatric examination. If it is found that the defendant was at the time of the offence incapable to be found criminally responsible, proceedings for the application of security measures will be carried out. This may result in imposing the security measure of compulsory psychiatric treatment and confinement in a medical institution. Since 2012, there is only one such facility in Slovenia where such measures can be carried out – (a closed) Forensic Psychiatry Unit of the University Clinical Centre Maribor. However, in the past there was an open forensic psychiatry ward in Slovenia – and it seems that such a ward was a unique practice in Europe. Although the practice does not exist anymore, the experiences and its elements seem to be a promising practice, which is why we chose the Department of Forensic and Social Psychiatry of the University Psychiatric Hospital in Ljubljana, Slovenia (hereinafter: DFSP) for the Slovenian national case study. The Department was (for a certain period) an open institution organised as a therapeutic community (TC) and which had a psychotherapeutic and rehabilitative orientation. The DFSP offered “treatment for psychotic offenders, prisoners, and people with socially accentu- ated psychiatric disorders” (Kobal and Žagar 1994). However, there was a selection of forensic patients that were to be treated within the DFSP and those who were assessed as too much of a risk, were still referred to a closed ward of a psychiatric hospital.532 Nevertheless, the experience showed that rehabilitation of many of the forensic patients can be achieved with alternative approaches such as TC. The DFSP was founded on 15 August 1967 by the University Psychiatric Hospital founded DFSP and the first head the Department was first Dr. Kobal who was later replaced by Dr. Žagar.533 Both were psychiatrists who beforehand had experience as prison psychiatrists. They were also among the main protagonists of this development, and we could say that if it wasn’t for them, an open forensic psychiatry warn would never have existed. But to be precise, the initiator was Kondža Joco, senior medical technician. Dr. Žagar (2023) explained in an interview: “He took the initiative and said to professor Kobal... This was a closed department in the beginning and there were many patients, probably 30 of them or more. And some could go home, some couldn't go home, because they still had the measure issued by the court) and were new and aggressive and so on... and they weren't allowed to go out. Then he said to professor Kobal "Well, they know who can go out and who can’t go out anyway, what if we try to leave the door open?". And when they opened the ward, nothing happened. Everything went well according to a program that had been planned before.” However, as written by Kondža and Kobal (2014): “The department became open. But not mindlessly and without control. Safety inside and outside the ward was the basic rule. After the bars were removed, we started to open the doors gradually.” According to Kobal and Žagar there was a general tendency to organise other departments as TCs at that time, which helped the DFSP to become a true therapeutic, rehabilitative and environment-oriented TC (for a certain period).534 131