Citation

Paradis CM, Owen E, Solomon LZ, Lane B, Gulrajani C, Fullar M, Perry A, Rai S, Lavy T, McCullough G. Int. J. Law Psychiatry 2016; 47: 79-85.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai-Roosevelt Hospital, 1111Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10025, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijlp.2016.02.039

PMID

27085728

Abstract

Data were examined from an archival sample of Competency to Stand Trial (CST) reports of 200 consecutive New York City pre-trial defendants evaluated over a five-month period. Approximately a fourth of defendants in the present study were immigrants; many required the assistance of interpreters. The examiners conducting the CST evaluation diagnosed approximately half of the defendants with a primary diagnosis of a psychotic disorder and deemed over half not competent. Examiners reached the same conclusion about competency in 96% of cases, about the presence of a psychotic disorder in 91% of cases, and affective disorder in 85% of cases. No significant differences between psychologists and psychiatrists were found for rates of competency/incompetency opinions. Compared to those deemed competent, defendants deemed not competent had significantly higher rates of prior psychiatric hospitalization and diagnosis of psychotic illness at the time of the CST evaluation but lower rates of reported substance abuse.

Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en