Criminal Responsibility and Mental Disorder in Britain and North America: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The relationship between criminal responsibility and mental disorder is traced and described in England, Scotland, Canada and the United States of America. In Britain the Mental Health Acts have now made argument over criminal responsibility and mental disorder largely obsolete, also bringing an increased medical influence to the dispositions, by the Courts, of mentally disordered offenders. In North America the question of the criminal responsibility of a mentally disordered accused remains an essential cornerstone in the equitable management of such individuals by the legal system. This article explores some of the problems encountered in the differing approaches.