Expertise psychiatrique de prélibération

Abstract

Missions of psychiatrists in charge of expertises relating to pre-release of persons are regulated within a juridical framework elaborated by the penal policy of the current society. These missions are undertaken within the strict limits not only of medical ethics and deontology but also of those of the corpus of the current criminology and psychiatry. Taking into account the possible gaps between policy and corpus the legitimate desire of satisfying social orders; of executing judicial rulings and of helping magistrate's decisions should not lead the psychiatric expert to the illusion of omnipotence and of knowing everything and most of all to ignorance of major difficulties of prognosis of acting out, i.e. of uncertainties inherent to the concept of dangerousness contrasting with the gravity and the increasing number of decisions that the psychiatrist inspires and pretends justifying. Only a truly conscientious, attentive expert work that conforms to acquired scientific data can serve the cause of justice and contribute to the development of forensic psychiatry, and of psychiatry itself, notably in that which concerns illnesses that may favour transgressions.