Medical and legal safety measures for people with psychiatric pathology and dangerous behavior

Abstract

Medical safety measures are located in a complex area of medico-legal interference and social protection, involving close collaboration and a smooth flow of information and persons between courts and medical and administrative institutions. Whenever a person with psychiatric pathology commits crimes or antisocial acts, he or she can be redirected to a specialized medical service where they can be hospitalized against their will. Involuntary medical hospitalization finds applicability in the Law no. 487/2002 on mental health and the protection of persons with mental disorders, this representing the framework regulation in the matter of involuntary hospitalization. The medical security measures have a pronounced character of protection of the perpetrator and a low degree of coercion, being also ordered in the interest of those who have come into conflict with the criminal law. Through these characteristics, security measures become procedural measures. Depending on the nature of the act, the person in question may be involuntarily hospitalized under Law no. 487/2002, if the act is of a civil nature, but there are situations in which the act falls under criminal incidence, the person being investigated under Article 248 of the Criminal Code of Procedure. In such situations, there is an overlap between the civil and the criminal side, the laws can help each other or they can lead to forensic problems.