engleski

Criminal law and forensic psychiatry

Modern forensic psychiatry follows the development of psychiatry as a medical specialty, but also the development of new areas of jurisprudence. Forensic psychiatry, as an interdisciplinary profession has overlapping areas with psychology, sociology, criminology and penology. Therefore, it is, on the one hand, a part of medicine and natural sciences, but, on the other hand, is part of social sciences. Every single legal domain that regulates relationships among individuals is in some way connected to (forensic) psychiatry. Regarding legal aspects that forensic psychiatry covers, it can be divided into several branches, and the most important are forensic psychiatry in criminal las and forensic psychiatry in civil law. Forensic psychiatry in criminal law covers two important and huge areas: the area of psychiatric evaluation of criminal responsibility and treatment of offenders. Due to the subject of forensic psychiatry and due to the tight connections with judicial system, it is important that a forensic psychiatrist is familiar with basics of jurisprudence, and that a judge is familiar with the basics of psychiatry. Legal definitions of psychiatric disorders sometimes are not in congruence with psychiatric definitions. Therefore, it is a duty of a psychiatrist to translate psychiatric disorders into legal definitions, in order to make a complicated psychiatric terminology understandable to those who participate in a court and who are psychiatric lay people. In this paper, we shall present the procedure of psychiatric evaluation, basic aspects of evaluation and forensic suggestions on the mode of psychiatric treatment.

criminal law ; forensic psychiatry ; criminal responsibility ; treatment of offenders

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