Abstract
Criminal responsibility assessment is undertaken by psychologists or psychiatrists to assess offenders' legal capacities, which vary among countries or regional legislations. There are two psychometric tools (i.e., checklists) validated for criminal responsibility assessment: the Roger Criminal Responsibility Scale, and the rating scale of criminal responsibility for mentally disordered offenders. Despite the existence of psychometric tools structured in clinical vignettes for evaluating legal capacities, none serve the purpose of assessing criminal responsibility. This study aims to validate a novel psychometric tool structured in vignettes for the assessment of criminal responsibility called the “Criminal Responsibility Scale.” We applied the tool to 88 defendants referred for criminal responsibility assessment in a forensic medical institute in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from December 2017 to December 2018. The validity of the Criminal Responsibility Scale and subscales were evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis. The two-factor solution proved satisfactory and met the needs for practical application of the tool (Kaiser–Meyer–Oklin = 0.82; p < 0.001). Moreover, the inter-rater reliability was evaluated by comparing the tool's final score with that of the expert's conclusion in each case and was found to be satisfactory (k = 0.667–1.0), with a resulting cutoff point of 30.50 (±2) and a Youden index of 0.509. Hence, the Criminal Responsibility Scale is an effective psychometric tool for assessments of criminal responsibility that may encourage future research in assessments of legal capacity with clinical vignette-based psychometric instruments.
Highlights
Criminal responsibility (CR) is the degree of legal liability attributed to a defendant accused of committing an illegal act (1, 2)
The Criminal Responsibility Scale” (CRS) is based on the MacArthur-CA clinical vignette structure (26, 28–30) and the main psychopathological theoretical model concerning the assessment of CR in Brazil (13)
The main hypothesis tested in our study is that the assessment of the psychopathological constructs of capacity for understanding” (CU) and Capacity for self-determination (CD) can be performed with a structured interview based on clinical vignettes, with questions and answers unrelated to the respective offender or criminal setting
Summary
Criminal responsibility (CR) is the degree of legal liability attributed to a defendant accused of committing an illegal act (1, 2). Ruled out or diminished CR is possible in very specific situations when the defendant is considered not guilty due to an insanity plea (3, 4). In this case, it is claimed that the defendant’s mental status at the time of the offense was impaired (1, 2). Offenders’ CR is determined by their legal capacities (LCs), which correspond to specific psychopathological constructs (1– 4). An offender’s “legal capacity” refers to his/her ability to act within the framework of the legal system, and this ability is based on whether the offender suffers from psychopathologies as determined by a psychiatrist or psychiatrist (1).
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