Assessment Of Criminal Responsibility Research Articles

The Psychoanalytical Approach as a Contribution to the Assessment of Criminal Responsibility

A psychoanalytically oriented method was used to explore the psychological dimensions of criminal responsibility and guilt. The sample consisted of 12 males and females with neurotic, psychopathic, and borderline character disturbances sent to the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Vrapce, Zagreb, Yugoslavia. These diagnostic categories represent the greatest problem in estimating accountability and criminal responsibility. In addition to trying to formulate psychoanalytic criteria for estimating criminal responsibility, this study aims at finding more reliable criteria for ascertaining dangerousness, prognosis, and indications for adequate treatment. It was found that the main criterion was an estimate of the ego's functions as they correspond with the legal formulation “capacity to understand one's own actions and control them.” Additional elements used in analysis included subjective and projected guilt. It is concluded that the degree of criminal responsibility for a particular act does not represent a more direct basis for determining punishment. This study also shows how transference-countertransference reactions can influence the process of expert testimony. Advantages and disadvantages of the psychoanalytically informed approach are weighed against more traditional assessment methods in forensic psychiatry.

Assessments of the treatability of forensic patients

AbstractThe treatment of mentally disordered offenders receives very little attention in the literature both by itself and in comparison to other psychological issues such as the insanity defense and the prediction of dangerousness. It is argued that the treatment of mentally disordered offenders should be seen as the more central issue and that the development of an effective technology of change can, in principle, resolve certain problems with the insanity defense and the prediction of dangerousness. From this viewpoint, assessments of treatability should be seen as more practically relevant to dispositional decisions than assessments of criminal responsibility, and improvements in the effectiveness of treatment a better approach to the problem of dangerousness than attempts to improve predictive methods.

Assessment of Criminal Responsibility: Empirical Advances and Unanswered Questions

Clinical issues in the assessment of criminal responsibility have been largely obscured by the emotional and political responses to Hinckley's acquittal. In spite of this, empirical advances have recently been made in the evaluation of insanity which include progress toward standardizing screening procedures with the MSE, and the operationalizing of legal standards with the R-CRAS. Important questions remain on the influence of extraclinical factors, effects of new statutory proposals, and an etiological understanding of psychotically based criminal behavior.

Antisocial backgrounds of defendants evaluated for insanity: A research note

Defendants evaluated for criminal responsibility have received much attention regarding their sociodemographic characteristics (Pasewark, 1981; Steadman, 1985), post-acquittal disposition (Weiner, 1985), and how their assessment was conducted (Rogers, 1986). Comparatively little attention has focused on the antisocial backgrounds of these defendants including developmental and adult symptoms of antisocial personality disorder. This neglect is largely due to the relative infrequency of insanity evaluations and the descriptive nature of early studies. The basic role of clinicians in criminal responsibility assessments is generally to assist the court in determining who is bad and who is mad. At present, no empirical data exist which systematically compare antisocial personality characteristics of those clinically evaluated as sane and insane. If the antisocial backgrounds of these two groups are comparable, then the distinction between bad and mad is likely to be blurred. Available research on antisocial personality characteristics of insanity acquittees have been limited to an examination of prior arrests. Pasewark (1981) in a review of studies from New York, Wyoming, Michigan, and Missouri found that 47% to 74% of defendants acquitted as NGRI (i.e., not guilty by reason of insanity) had at least one prior arrest. Steadman and Braff (1983) compared the prior arrest histories of defendants adjudged insane and those found guilty. Their results suggested that the majority of defendants had at least one prior arrest (57% for NGRI’s and 70% for those convicted) with a non-significant trend towards fewer arrests among NGRI’s (i.e., an average of 3.5 for NGRI’s and 4.7 for those convicted). Finally, Steadman (1985) found no significant differences in either criminal history or the details of the target offence for those adjudicated insane and those convicted. Prior criminal history apparently has some effect both on clinical recommendations and legal outcomes of criminal responsibility evaluations. Rogers, Seman, and Stampley (1984) studied variables associated with clinical recommendations of non-responsibility in insanity assessments. They found that

Assessment of criminal responsibility: Initial validation of the R-CRAS with the M'Naghten and GBMI standards

Assessment of criminal responsibility: Initial validation of the R-CRAS with the M'Naghten and GBMI standards

An empirical approach to insanity evaluations.

Described the development of the Rogers Criminal Responsibility Assessment Scales (RCRAS) as an empirically based testing procedure specifically designed for use in insanity evaluations. A pretest of the RCRAS that employed 10 case vignettes and a preliminary study of 25 patients are reported. Initial results indicated that the RCRAS has satisfactory interrater reliability and successfully discriminated between those patients evaluated as sane and insane. Results of the discriminant analysis, MANOVA, and factor analysis are discussed with reference to the RCRAS' construct validity and the need for further extensive studies.

Jurors' Assessment of Criminal Responsibility

Jurors' Assessment of Criminal Responsibility

Jurors' Assessment of Criminal Responsibility

deal with jurors' reactions to alternative legal criteria of responsibility in a sequence of experimental cases involving a plea of insanity. The present discussion will be limited to comments and impressions relevant to jurors' assessment of responsibility in the first of these jury experiments. The problem as we have approached it may be divided into three sections: the legal and historical background, the research design, and the data.

Discussion on the Assessment of Criminal Responsibility in the Armed Forces

Discussion on the Assessment of Criminal Responsibility in the Armed Forces