The Importance of Multidisciplinary Evaluation of Juvenile Criminal Responsibility

Abstract

In childhood, comprehension of the meaning and consequences of a crime, taking the responsibility of it and the ability of dealing with the sentence is described as children criminal responsibility. Some of the main topics of forensic psychiatry like the content and the way of a crime and socio-cultural development of the child are to be taken into consideration during investigation. It is aimed to discuss the subject and the procedure of evaluation by the case of this four children who are claimed to have insulted the Turkish flag. In this case, during the preparation stage, it was reported that the children were responsible for the crime. In contrast to this forensic report, the prosecutor had decided that these four children could not comprehend what kind of a crime they had committed and what would be the consequences. After a second evaluation by forensic medicine and child and adolescent psychiatry, it was reported that one of them was mentally retarded, whereas the others didn’t have either any kind of mental disorders or any psychological problems that can be seen specifically during childhood or adolescence. Still it was decided that none of the children were criminally responsible. There is sometimes a very thin line between a fault and a crime in childhood. The court and the forensic medicine should play their role perfectly in order to gain the child for the benefit of the public and in order not to blame them because of the absentees of the family, environment and educational process. We present this case in order to discuss the children criminal responsibility concept, and to emphasize the multidisciplinary evaluation of the children and to point out the prosecutor’s approach who had requested a second report from an academic association.

Key Words: Juvenile criminal responsibility, Child, Crime