Legal Insanity: Explorations in Psychiatry, Law, and Ethics

Legal Insanity: Explorations in Psychiatry, Law, and Ethics
Author: Gerben Meynen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2016
Genre: Criminal law
ISBN: 9783319447209

This book examines core issues related to legal insanity, integrating perspectives from psychiatry, law, and ethics. Various criteria for insanity are analyzed and recommendations for forensic psychiatric and legal practice are offered. Many legal systems have an insanity defense, in one form or another. Still, it remains unclear exactly when and why mental disorders affect a person's moral or criminal responsibility. Questions addressed in this book include: Why should insanity be a component of our legal system? What should be the criteria for an insanity defense? What would be the reasons for abolishing it? Who should bear the burden of proof? Furthermore, the book discusses the impact neurosciences may have on psychiatric and psychological evaluations of defendants as well as on legal decisions about insanity.

Legal Insanity: Explorations in Psychiatry, Law, and Ethics

Legal Insanity: Explorations in Psychiatry, Law, and Ethics
Author: Gerben Meynen
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2016-11-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3319447211

This book examines core issues related to legal insanity, integrating perspectives from psychiatry, law, and ethics. Various criteria for insanity are analyzed and recommendations for forensic psychiatric and legal practice are offered. Many legal systems have an insanity defense, in one form or another. Still, it remains unclear exactly when and why mental disorders affect a person’s moral or criminal responsibility. Questions addressed in this book include: Why should insanity be a component of our legal system? What should be the criteria for an insanity defense? What would be the reasons for abolishing it? Who should bear the burden of proof? Furthermore, the book discusses the impact neurosciences may have on psychiatric and psychological evaluations of defendants as well as on legal decisions about insanity.

The Rules of Insanity

The Rules of Insanity
Author: Carl Elliott
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 160
Release: 1996-07-03
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780791429525

In The Rules of Insanity, Carl Elliott draws on philosophy and psychiatry to develop a conceptual framework for judging the moral responsibility of mentally ill offenders. Arguing that there is little useful that can be said about the responsibility of mentally ill offenders in general, Elliott looks at specific mental illnesses in detail; among them schizophrenia, manic-depressive disorders, psychosexual disorders such as exhibitionism and voyeurism, personality disorders, and impulse control disorders such as kleptomania and pyromania. He takes a particularly hard look at the psychopath or sociopath, who many have argued is incapable of understanding morality. Making extensive use of psychiatric case histories, Elliott explores the various ways in which mental illness can affect a person's intentions and thus excuse him or her from moral responsibility.

Clinical Forensic Psychology

Clinical Forensic Psychology
Author: Carlo Garofalo
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 642
Release: 2022-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030808823

This book represents a comprehensive collection of theoretical and empirical work at the nexus of clinical and forensic psychology written by world-renowned experts in the field. It is among the first books in the field to focus entirely on clinical psychological science applied to the understanding and treatment of offending. Part I addresses the main theoretical and clinical models used to explain and predict antisocial behavior, spanning biological, cognitive, experimental, individual differences, and interpersonal perspectives. Part II focuses on forms of psychopathology associated with an increased tendency to offend, with the emphasis on describing the clinical constructs most relevant for forensic psychology. Each chapter describes the clinical characteristics of one form of psychopathology, their assessment, their links with antisocial behavior, and treatment considerations. Part III focuses on different types of offense or offender groups as starting points. This perspective has relevance since many criminal justice and forensic mental health systems allocate offenders to interventions based on their index offense (or history of offenses). Finally, Part IV addresses the application of clinical psychology in the service of assessment and treatment in forensic settings. It includes the state of the art on diagnostic and risk assessment, as well as both widely used and recently developed interventions. This book is an excellent resource for students at both Bachelor’s and Master’s level, while also representing a comprehensive handbook for experienced researchers and practitioners.

The Insanity Defense

The Insanity Defense
Author: Mark D. White
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2017-01-23
Genre: Law
ISBN:

How often is the defense of insanity or temporary insanity for accused criminals valid—or is it ever legitimate? This unique work presents multidisciplinary viewpoints that explain, support, and critique the insanity defense as it stands. What is the role of "the insanity defense" as a legal excuse? How does U.S. law handle criminal trials where the defendant pleads insanity, and how does our legal system's treatment differ from those of other countries or cultures? How are insanity defenses used, and how successful are these defenses for the accused? What are the costs of incarceration versus psychiatric treatment and confinement? This book presents a range of expert viewpoints on the insanity defense, exposing common myths; investigating its effectiveness and place in our legal system through history, case studies, and comparative analysis; and supplying perspectives from the disciplines of psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and neuroscience. The content also addresses the ramifications of declaring citizens insane or incapacitated and examines trials that involved pleas of insanity and temporary insanity.

Police Response to Mental Health in Canada

Police Response to Mental Health in Canada
Author: Uzma Williams
Publisher: Canadian Scholars’ Press
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2019-08-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1773381458

The overwhelming majority of police calls involve individuals with mental health experiences and yet limited resources exist to prepare first responders for these interactions. Police Response to Mental Health in Canada addresses this gap in the field, providing practical guidance to police studies students on how best to respond to mental health-related calls in both critical and non-critical situations.In addition, this book focuses on the mental health of policing professionals by addressing common mental health symptoms and providing strategies to improve the mental health wellness of policing professionals. Aligned with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, (DSM-5) criteria, this text provides in-depth explanations of the mental health conditions commonly encountered in policing, including mood, psychosis, personality, substance abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorders. Written in an accessible style, this book includes pedagogical tools such as scenario-based learning, case studies, reflection questions, group activities, and chapter summaries to reinforce the learning objectives outlined at the start of each chapter. With the increasing demand for law enforcement officials to be better informed and prepared to interact with those experiencing mental health issues, this is a timely resource for students in college and university police studies programs. FEATURES: - Learning objectives, case studies, and discussion questions - Contributions from leaders in fields of health services, psychology, criminology, policing, and corrections - Discussion of Canadian issues that are relevant across the country, including police relations with Indigenous populations and incidents of gang-related violence

The Insanity Defence

The Insanity Defence
Author: Warren Brookbanks
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2022-11-08
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0198854943

More than any other defence in the criminal law, the insanity defence has, and continues to be, the subject of heated debate. Yet too little is known about how the insanity defence operates in different jurisdictions, including in the United Kingdom and Ireland. In this book, Mackay and Brookbanks, and their team of expert contributors, explore the theory and practice around the insanity defence and analyse its diverse influence and manifestations across a wide range of common law and civil law jurisdictions. Typically, the insanity defence, as exemplified in the M'Naghten Rules, represents a foundational aspect of criminal responsibility, although in some jurisdictions it serves only to define degrees of mental capacity. However, what all jurisdictions have in common is the high and increasing incidence of mental illness and impairment challenging existing constructions of an exculpatory rule. This book explores in detail the origins and operation of the M'Naghten Rules as well as the eclectic nature of the insanity defence, its highly variable linguistic expression, and the diverse social policy mandates it seeks to embrace. The Insanity Defence will reinvigorate the debate about the defence by discussing both its theoretical basis and exploring how different jurisdictions approach the insanity plea, not only in relation to an appropriate test and how it operates, but also from the perspective of disposal and how those who use the insanity defence successfully are dealt with. This book will be of interest to researchers, academics, and advanced students with an interest in criminal law internationally, as well as to those involved in the development of policy and legislation.

Coercive Brain-Reading in Criminal Justice

Coercive Brain-Reading in Criminal Justice
Author: Sjors Ligthart
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2022-09-01
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1009252461

Emerging neurotechnology offers increasingly individualised brain information, enabling researchers to identify mental states and content. When accurate and valid, these brain-reading technologies also provide data that could be useful in criminal legal procedures, such as memory detection with EEG and the prediction of recidivism with fMRI. Yet, unlike in medicine, individuals involved in criminal cases will often be reluctant to undergo brain-reading procedures. This raises the question of whether coercive brain-reading could be permissible in criminal law. Coercive Brain-Reading in Criminal Justice examines this question in view of European human rights: the prohibition of ill-treatment, the right to privacy, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and the privilege against self-incrimination. The book argues that, at present, the established framework of human rights does not exclude coercive brain-reading. It does, however, delimit the permissible use of forensic brain-reading without valid consent. This cautionary, cutting-edge book lays a crucial foundation for understanding the future of criminal legal proceedings in a world of ever-advancing neurotechnology.

Automatism, Insanity, and the Psychology of Criminal Responsibility

Automatism, Insanity, and the Psychology of Criminal Responsibility
Author: Robert F. Schopp
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 291
Release: 1991-07-26
Genre: Law
ISBN: 052140150X

This is a book about the role that psychological impairment should play in a theory of criminal liability. Criminal guilt in the Anglo-American legal tradition requires both that the defendant committed some proscribed act and did so with intent, knowledge, or recklessness. The second requirement corresponds to the intuitive idea that people should not be punished for something they did not do "on purpose" or if they "did not realize what they were doing." Although intuitive, this underlying idea can be highly controversial in practice, especially in cases involving the insanity defense. This important new book addresses the conceptual and moral foundations of these issues. Unlike many previous works in this area, it addresses the automatism and insanity defenses by examining the types of functional impairment that typical candidates for these defenses actually suffer. What emerges is a much wider conceptual framework that allows us to understand the significance of psychological states and processes for the attribution of criminal responsibility in a manner that is logically coherent, morally defensible, and consistent with research in psychopathology.