Mental Disorder in the Criminal Justice System (From Criminology: A Reader's Guide, P 225-236, 1991, Jane Gladstone, Richard Ericson, et al., eds. -- See NCJ-128696)

• NCJ Number: 128705
• Author(s): C D Webster
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 12 pages
• Sale Source: University of Toronto
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: Canada

Annotation

This case study in law reform and policy examines how mental disorder is addressed within the Canadian criminal justice system.

Abstract

Although the criminal law recognizes it is unjust to try a person who is mentally unfit or to hold culpable persons who were legally insane at the time of an alleged offense, the criminal justice system has had difficulty in determining issues of mental competency, insanity, and dangerousness. The law itself is imprecise in its definitions. Psychiatrists, psychologists, and other health professionals have been used as experts, but their definitions are also imprecise. These definitional problems have an impact at every stage of the criminal justice process. The use of particular clinical diagnoses is often influenced more by institutional pressures than scientific and clinical criteria. Dispositions of mentally disordered offenders often depend on the availability of custodial and treatment facilities and their claims about services they can provide the offender. Due to institutional pressures, clinicians tend to overpredict dangerousness. Any legislation which assumes that psychiatric or psychological tests can accurately predict violent behavior should be modified. 42-item reading list