Criminal Responsibility

Whether criminal was aware of the commission of crime and the consequences of the crime.
It is the fact of being responsible for a crime for the act he has committed. So this does not
only apply to a person who
Delusion:
Delusions are fixed belief that are not amenable to change in the light of conflicting evidence.
Hallucination:
It is perception like experiences that occur without an external stimulus. They are vivid and
clear with full force and impact of normal perceptions and not under normal control.
DSM
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder , the American Psychiatric Association
and recent DSM is DSM 5 and ICD-International Classification of Diseases. The recent ICD
published in 2015 is ICD 11.

Criminal Responsibility and Mental Disorder

 Paranoia and Mental Disorder
Paranoid is a thought process, thought to be heavily influenced by an anxiety or fear, often to
the point of irrationality and delusions. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory
belief concerning a perceived threat towards oneself. According to DSM, paranoia is
diagnosed as:
 Paranoid Personalty Disorder
 Paranoid Schizophrenia
 The persecutory type of delusional disorder.
 The focus is to remedy some injustice by legal action.

 Schizophrenia
Investigating the mental state, just before the crime help when deliberating over criminal
responsibility. Generally Schizophrenia is characterized by an alteration between micro-
psychotic and basic normal state and classified clinically into severe , moderate , and mild
according to the level of susceptibility to the occurrence of activation recurrence
phenomenon. The severe patients are treated with medication and treated separately and the
disorder is not curable. Differentiating between the form and content of the micro psychotic
state is of marked importance in schizophrenia.

 Delinquent Act

Patterns of Criminality
 Crime was a response to the psychotic symptoms such as delusion and hallucination.
 Crime motivated by compulsive urges or disorders of impulse control.
 Crime as a result of personality disorder.
 Coincidental mental disorder not related to crime.
  Mental disorder results from the crime, dissociation and depression.

Different types of Criminal Behaviour:

According to DSM there are 3 cluster of behaviour:
Paranoid and Schizoid, Schizotypal:
Anti social, border line, hysteronic, narcissistic
Avoidant, Dependant, Obsessive, Compulsive