summary Forensic psychiatric patients generally are considered troublesome, though in this study case registration data and case studies (1996) suggest but limited differences in demographics, diagnoses, treatment outcome, manageability and outflow between patients committed under the Dutch Penal and Civil Codes. More often those patients were males of foreign descent. Forensic patients on a high security ward only were more difficult to treat and to manage. Delay of hospital admission after the judicial verdict seemed to have a negative association with all variables measured. It should therefore be minimised.