Assessment of Responsibility in Criminal Law and Psychiatric Practice (From Law and Mental Health - International Perspectives, Volume 1, P 193-220, 1984, David N Weisstub, ed. - See NCJ-100647)

• NCJ Number: 100651
• Author(s): S L Halleck
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 28 pages
• Sale Source: Pergamon Press
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This essay outlines a conceptual framework for evaluating the manner in which patients who are encountered in clinical or forensic settings should be held responsible for their conduct, arguing that assessment of every patient's responsibility for his or her conduct is an integral aspect of psychiatric practice.

Abstract

After defining the term responsibility, the paper explores the historical basis of liability assessment in criminal law. In summary, the law sets certain thresholds and considers the influence of psychological variables as significant excusing factors only when the degree of disability found in offenders exceeds these thresholds. This all or none model, however, obscures the nature of the assessment process. Once assessment is viewed in terms of how various types of mental disorders influence an individual's psychological, social, and physical capacities, the degree of responsibility can be quantified and related directly to the degree of incapacity. Specific areas addressed in the paper's discussion of such a framework include grading the responsibility of offenders and what incapacities should receive the greatest exculpatory weight. Finally, the paper examines how assessments of responsibility, or excuse-giving, are made in everyday psychiatric practice. Over 50 references.