Forensic psychiatry serves the purpose of correcting and securing mentally ill or addicted criminals. In Baden-Württemberg, the statutory task of forensic psychiatry is assigned to the centres for psychiatry. The majority of these centres are also responsible for the forensic outpatient clinics. The overarching objectives are regulated in Section 33 of the Baden-Württemberg Mental Health Care Act (PsychKHG), which came into force on 1 January 2015; treatment is intended to cure the person in custody as far as possible or improve their condition to such an extent that they are no longer dangerous and reintegration into society is possible. For the first time, the law regulates in detail the placement of offenders in a psychiatric hospital in accordance with Sections 63 and 64 of the German Criminal Code.

In the past, there was little room for manoeuvre in implementing the psychiatric policy principle of "outpatient before inpatient" due to the security mandate of the prison system and the court order for an inpatient deprivation of liberty. With institutionalised forensic aftercare and the introduction of forensic psychiatric outpatient clinics at numerous locations in the state of Baden-Württemberg, the need for specific forensic psychiatric knowledge is also evident in the outpatient sector. Forensic transitional models such as trial living and reality-adapted stress tests already exist.