Psychiatry and the Criminal Law System
JOHN M. SUAREZ M.D.1
1 Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and School of Law, and Director, Section on Legal Psychiatry, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, 760 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, Calif. 90024
To date the interaction between psychiatry and the criminal law system has been frustrating and unproductive. This failure is explained on the basis that psychiatry has always become involved at the request of the legal system and, worse, that its tasks and roles have been delineated and defined by the legal system. Psychiatry has accepted this uncritically and unimaginatively. The author reviews the basic steps of the criminal process and suggests newer and broader approaches for psychiatric collaboration at each level.
