Present-day legislation and the assessment of violent criminal behaviour: An urgent need for reform

The clinical examination of mental patients committed to specialized hospitals as well as the practice of criminal psychiatric expertise do not at present allow the serious assessment of the dangerousness and risk of violent recidivism. The use of diagnostic and predictive scientific methods has become indispensable. In criminal cases, the expert must also take into account the actual facts of the offense: degree of premeditation, organization of the crime scene, dynamics and typology of violence, relational and environmental context, victimology, judicial information. Traditional psychiatric expertise must now give way to a comprehensive, multidisciplinary criminological form of analysis combining all individual and collective factors of a subjective and objective nature. (C) 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.