The Psychology of the Accused in the Post-Criminal Period – Implications in the Psychiatric Forensic Expertise

Abstract

: The present paper aims to analyze the particularities of the accused’s behavior in the post-criminal period, a period full of emotional stress and suspiciousness. The behavior of the accused during this period may produce major disturbances in the interrogation but may cause “artifacts” in the case of submitting him to a psychiatric forensic examination. The paper briefly describes the concepts of general and judicial psychology, detailing the purpose of judicial psychology. Subsequently, the authors particularize aspects of judicial psychology in the case of the main psychiatric disorders and the way of approaching the patients suffering from these diseases in the post-criminal period. We appreciate as a final conclusion that it is necessary to improve the techniques of judicial psychology and use them more widely. Judicial psychology has proven its usefulness in a large number of forensic cases, which recommends it as part of the psychiatric forensic expertise committees.