The Matrix of Insanity in Modern Criminal Law


Book Description

This book challenges the assumptions of modern criminal law that insanity is a natural, legally and medically defined phenomenon (covering a range of medical disorders). By doing so, it paves the way for a new perspective on insanity and can serve as the basis for a new approach to insanity in modern criminal law. The book covers the following aspects: the structure of the principle of fault in modern criminal law, the development of the insanity defense in criminal law, tangential in personam defenses in criminal law and their implications for insanity and the legal mechanism of reproduction of fault. The focus is on the Anglo-American and European-Continental legal systems. Given the attention consistently drawn by international and domestic events in this context, the book will be of interest to a broad and growing international audience.




The Insanity Defense


Book Description

How often is the defense of insanity or temporary insanity for accused criminals valid—or is it ever legitimate? This unique work presents multidisciplinary viewpoints that explain, support, and critique the insanity defense as it stands. What is the role of "the insanity defense" as a legal excuse? How does U.S. law handle criminal trials where the defendant pleads insanity, and how does our legal system's treatment differ from those of other countries or cultures? How are insanity defenses used, and how successful are these defenses for the accused? What are the costs of incarceration versus psychiatric treatment and confinement? This book presents a range of expert viewpoints on the insanity defense, exposing common myths; investigating its effectiveness and place in our legal system through history, case studies, and comparative analysis; and supplying perspectives from the disciplines of psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and neuroscience. The content also addresses the ramifications of declaring citizens insane or incapacitated and examines trials that involved pleas of insanity and temporary insanity.




Applied Criminal Psychology


Book Description

Applied Criminal Psychology provides the reader with a comprehensive and practical guide to psychological research and techniques. It is introductory and wide-ranging and covers important forensic aspects of psychology, psychiatry, and behavioral sciences. Many key forensic issues are covered, including personality disorders, risk assessment, the forensic psychologist as an expert witness, detecting deception, eyewitness memory, cognitive interviewing, forensic hypnosis, false confessions, criminal profiling, and crisis negotiation. With this new edition and starting with the first two chapters, significant focus has been placed upon Psychopathy and the closely associated DSM category of Anti-Social Personality Disorder. Another new chapter has also been included dedicated to the principles of law associated with an accused person's mental status. The book is international and interdisciplinary in its scope and focus. Many of the contributors to this book are well known scholars and/or practitioners. It will be of great interest to psychologists, psychiatrists, criminologists, legal professionals, law enforcement personnel and students who are planning careers in forensic psychology, criminology, and policing.




Legal Aspects of Autonomous Systems


Book Description

As computational power, the volume of available data, IT systems’ autonomy, and the human-like capabilities of machines increase, robots and AI systems have substantial and growing implications for the law and raise a host of challenges to current legal doctrines. The main question to be answered is whether the foundations and general principles of private law and criminal law offer a functional and adaptive legal framework for the “autonomous systems” phenomena. The main purpose of this book is to identify and explore possible trajectories for the development of civil and criminal liability; for our understanding of the attribution link to autonomous systems; and, in particular, for the punishment of unlawful conduct in connection with their operation. AI decision-making processes – including judicial sentencing – also warrant close attention in this regard. Since AI is moving faster than the process of regulatory recalibration, this book provides valuable insights on its redesign and on the harmonization, at the European level, of the current regulatory frameworks, in order to keep pace with technological changes. Providing a broader and more comprehensive picture of the legal challenges posed by autonomous systems, this book covers a wide range of topics, including the regulation of autonomous vehicles, data protection and governance, personality rights, intellectual property, corporate governance, and contract conclusion and termination issues arising from automated decisions, blockchain technology and AI applications, particularly in the banking and finance sectors. The authors are legal experts from around the world with extensive academic and/or practical experience in these areas.




Police Response to Mental Health in Canada


Book Description

The overwhelming majority of police calls involve individuals with mental health experiences and yet limited resources exist to prepare first responders for these interactions. Police Response to Mental Health in Canada addresses this gap in the field, providing practical guidance to police studies students on how best to respond to mental health-related calls in both critical and non-critical situations.In addition, this book focuses on the mental health of policing professionals by addressing common mental health symptoms and providing strategies to improve the mental health wellness of policing professionals. Aligned with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, (DSM-5) criteria, this text provides in-depth explanations of the mental health conditions commonly encountered in policing, including mood, psychosis, personality, substance abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorders. Written in an accessible style, this book includes pedagogical tools such as scenario-based learning, case studies, reflection questions, group activities, and chapter summaries to reinforce the learning objectives outlined at the start of each chapter. With the increasing demand for law enforcement officials to be better informed and prepared to interact with those experiencing mental health issues, this is a timely resource for students in college and university police studies programs. FEATURES: - Learning objectives, case studies, and discussion questions - Contributions from leaders in fields of health services, psychology, criminology, policing, and corrections - Discussion of Canadian issues that are relevant across the country, including police relations with Indigenous populations and incidents of gang-related violence




Sexuality, Disability, and the Law


Book Description

Sexuality, Disability, and the Law approaches issues of sexual autonomy and disability from multiple perspectives, including constitutional law, international human rights, therapeutic jurisprudence, history, cognitive psychology, dignity studies, and theories and findings on gender constructs and societal norms. Perlin and Lynch determine that if our society continues to assert that persons with mental disabilities possess a primitive morality, we allow ourselves to censor their feelings and their actions. By denying their ability and desires to show love and affection, we justify this disparate treatment. Our reliance on stereotypes has warped our attitudes and our policies, and has allowed us to avoid important issues of humanity and of dignity that should be at the basis of any policies that affect this population.




Dangerous Liaisons


Book Description

Humor and cruelty can be the best of friends. Many cruel domains have facilitated hilarity of all kinds, whether experienced directly or vicariously, stretching from the torture chamber to the living room—or wherever else a screen is to be found. Conversely, many jests have provided the vehicle with which to dispense cruelty, whether callously or gleefully, in myriad settings, from public events to intimate family dinners. Combining the sources and resources of the humanities and social sciences, this book investigates the mutually supportive liaisons of humor and cruelty. We unearth the brutal, aggressive, and/or sadomasochistic roots of mockery and self-mockery, sarcasm and satire, whilst addressing contemporary debates in humor studies focusing on the thorny ethics and existential challenges arising from the acceptance of the much-appreciated yet seldom innocent channel for human interaction called "humor."




Laughing Matters


Book Description

The present book addresses the background, rationale, general structure, and particular aims and arguments characterizing our third and last volume about "humor" and "cruelty". A guiding foray is provided into the vast expert literature that can be retrieved in the Western humanities and social sciences on these two terms. Pivotal thinkers and crucial notions are duly identified, highlighted, and examined. Apposite subsidiary references are also included, especially with regard to psychodynamics and clinical psychology, existentialism, feminism, liberalism, Marxism, and representative recent studies in the philosophy of humor and its cognates. The stage is thus set for the exploration and assessment of the conflicts between humor and cruelty unfolding in Part 2 of Volume 3. Being the philosophical terminus of our entire research project, Volume 3 counterbalances, complements, and, occasionally, complexifies the numerous forms of mutual cooperation between humor and cruelty that the preceding Volume 2 had unearthed and discussed.




Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality


Book Description

Virtual and augmented reality raise significant questions for law and policy. When should virtual world activities or augmented reality images count as protected First Amendment ‘speech’, and when are they instead a nuisance or trespass? When does copying them infringe intellectual property laws? When should a person (or computer) face legal consequences for allegedly harmful virtual acts? The Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality addresses these questions and others, drawing upon free speech doctrine, criminal law, issues of data protection and privacy, legal rights for increasingly intelligent avatars, and issues of jurisdiction within virtual and augmented reality worlds.




The Matrix of Derivative Criminal Liability


Book Description

Derivative criminal liability includes inchoate offenses (criminal attempt, conspiracy, preparatory offenses, etc.), complicity (joint perpetration, perpetration through another, incitement, solicitation, accessoryship, etc.), organized crime, natural and probable consequences liability, post-crime aid, enterprise liability, terrorism and terrorist infrastructure, and many more forms of criminal liability, clearly making it a major pillar of modern criminal law. Although derivative criminal liability affects countries worldwide, there is still no general legal theory that covers this issue. The objective of the present book is to develop a comprehensive, general, legally sophisticated, and at the same time practical theory of derivative criminal liability. The book emphasizes the practicality of the theory to enable courts, lawyers, legislators, attorneys, students, and academics to apply it in their daily professional occupations.