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The impact of misdemeanor arrests on forensic mental health services: A state-wide review of Virginia sanity evaluations.
Law and Human Behavior ( IF 3.870 ) Pub Date : 2020-08-01 , DOI: 10.1037/lhb0000417
Brett O Gardner 1 , Daniel C Murrie 1 , Angela N Torres 2
Affiliation  

OBJECTIVE We examined the prevalence of criminal defendants facing only misdemeanor charges and referred for forensic mental health evaluations of legal sanity (criminal responsibility) in a state-wide sample of sanity reports. We sought to describe this population of defendants, particularly as compared to defendants facing felony charges and referred for evaluation of legal sanity. HYPOTHESES We hypothesized that, among those referred for sanity evaluations, defendants facing only misdemeanor charges would have higher rates of serious mental illness than would defendants charged with felonies, as evidenced by their mental status during the evaluation and at the time of alleged offenses. We also hypothesized that defendants charged with only misdemeanors would be more often opined insane, as compared to those charged with felonies. METHOD We reviewed a statewide sample of 926 court-ordered sanity evaluation reports in Virginia and coded numerous variables describing the defendants, sanity evaluation process, resulting reports, and legal opinions offered within the reports. RESULTS Approximately 22.3% of sanity evaluations involved defendants charged only with misdemeanor offenses. Defendants facing only misdemeanor charges were 1.82 times more likely to be opined insane than were defendants facing only felony charges, primarily due to their increased likelihood of experiencing psychotic symptoms at the time of the offense (1.83 times more likely than defendants facing felony charges). CONCLUSIONS The merits of pursuing the insanity defense in response to misdemeanor charges are questionable given the cost- and resource-intensive outcomes associated with insanity acquittals. Diversion strategies may be a more efficient response to those defendants with serious mental illness facing only misdemeanor charges. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译:

轻罪逮捕对法医精神卫生服务的影响:弗吉尼亚州健康评估的全州审查。

目的我们研究了仅面临轻罪指控的刑事被告的普遍性,并在全州范围的卫生报告样本中将其用于法律卫生(法治责任)的法医心理健康评估。我们试图描述这种被告的数量,特别是与面临重罪指控并被推荐用于法律健全性评估的被告相比。假设我们假设,在进行健全性评估的人中,仅面临轻罪指控的被告会比被控重罪的被告有更高的严重精神疾病率,这在评估过程中和涉嫌犯罪时的精神状态得到了证明。我们还假设,与那些被判重罪的被告相比,仅被指控轻罪的被告更容易发疯。方法我们审查了弗吉尼亚州926份法院下达的卫生评估报告的全州样本,并对许多变量进行了编码,这些变量描述了被告,卫生评估过程,结果报告以及报告中提供的法律意见。结果大约22.3%的健全性评估涉及仅被指控轻罪的被告。仅面临轻罪指控的被告人有精神错乱的可能性比仅面临重罪指控的被告人高1.82倍,主要是因为他们在犯罪时遭受精神病症状的可能性增加(比面临重罪指控的被告人高1.83倍)。结论考虑到与精神错乱无罪释放相关的成本和资源密集型结果,对轻罪指控进行精神错乱防御的优点值得怀疑。对于患有严重精神疾病但仅轻罪指控的被告,转移策略可能是一种更有效的应对措施。(PsycInfo数据库记录(c)2020 APA,保留所有权利)。
更新日期:2020-08-01
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