When insanity has gone undiscovered by the courts: The practice of the Norwegian Criminal Cases Review Commission in cases of doubts about insanity

ConclusionsThe NCCRC may rely excessively on the forensic psychiatric reports. The experts' conclusions may be uncertain, given that they often have to look back several years to establish mental state and its relevance at the time of the crime. As nearly two‐thirds of the reopened insanity cases had been given penalties of under 6 months, it may be asked whether such further investigation of fairly low‐level crimes is the best use of resources. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Source: Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health - April 1, 2015 Category: Criminology Authors: Pål Grøndahl, Ulf Stridbeck Tags: Original Article Source Type: research