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19 - Psychiatry and ethics in UK criminal sentencing

from Section 3 - Special issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2011

Alec Buchanan
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Michael A. Norko
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
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Summary

This chapter describes an ethical journey undertaken by forensic psychiatrists in the UK. Psychiatric practitioners provide evidence to support or undermine the reasonableness of the risk assessment and presumption of dangerousness. Psychiatric reports are expected to address the issue of serious harm, risk, and dangerousness for the "guidance of the sentencing judge". From a UK perspective, the ethical debate in the United States seems focused on pure medical ethics and to pay insufficient attention to the wider perspective of the clinician's duties to the court and society. A. A. Stone sees psychiatric evidence as evidence that pertains to moral questions of responsibility and punishment. The task for psychiatry is to ensure that psychiatric experts are properly trained, and understand their role and the limitations of psychiatric evidence. In the UK context, the author proposes that forensic practice should be guided by principles drawn both from medicine and criminal justice.
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The Psychiatric Report
Principles and Practice of Forensic Writing
, pp. 254 - 263
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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