Forensic Implications in Disruptive Behavior Disorders

This chapter tackles the complex task of putting the knowledge base of disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) into a forensic context. The chapter first discusses the landmark legal cases that created a novel space for conceptualizing the psychopathology of crime. The implications of DBDs for culpability, rehabilitation, and institutional treatments. Real cases are used to prepare the clinician for the special challenges the psychiatric consultant to justice settings and the expert witness inevitably will face when involving themselves with DBD cases, the courts, justice settings, and follow-up care after incarceration. Special emphasis is put on the almost ubiquitous complexity of clinical syndromes in forensic cases that calls for considerable sophistication and breadth of clinical experience to do justice to this most difficult population.