Description
Book SynopsisIn this study of pre-trial clinical assessment, Robert Menzies examines a key element in our system of criminal justice and finds is wanting. His book calls into question the entire process by which the state determines that defendants are – or are not – mentally fit to stand trial.
The Metropolitan Toronto Forensic Service (METFORS) is a multi-disciplinary assessment agency which opened in 1978. During its first year of operation METFORS practitioners evaluated 592 defendants. Meznies has reconstructed medical and correctional records to trace the institutional careers of those men and women from their initial arrest, through their assessment of METFORS and the decision of the court, and finally through the two years following the initial assessment.
What emerges is an illuminating analysis of the character and outcome of forensic psychiatric decision-making; the relationship between clinicians and other criminal justice officials such as police, prosecutors,
