Objective: In children referred for forensic reports by juvenile courts, particularly as psychosexual maturation starts in the initial phases of adolescence, actions defined as criminal by society may be expected to have been committed. These actions, which are frequently the results of unconscious impulses and sometimes affectations, are crimes in the general sense for this reason; great care is required when determining the presence of the ability of children to perceive the legal meaning and consequences of crimes that they commit and their ability to channel their behaviors. The aim of this present study is to examine the mental problems in children driven to committing crimes and the preparation of forensic reports in a Turkish forensic sample.
Methods: Children referred by courts to Van Regional Training and Research Hospital Outpatient Clinics of Pediatric Psychiatry between 2013 and 2014 for forensic expert reports evaluating their ability to perceive the legal meaning and consequences of criminal behavior, and their ability to control their behaviors. Seventy-four children were evaluated retrospectively, with interviews of approximately 45 minutes on The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in order to determine psychiatric diagnosis.
Results: After evaluations, 26% of children and adolescents were found to possess the ability to perceive the legal meaning and consequences of the crime they had committed and have the ability to control their behaviors, while 27% could perceive the legal meaning and consequences but could not control their behavior, and 47% did not have the ability to perceive the legal meaning and consequences of the crime they had committed and to control their behaviors.
Conclusions: The ability to perceive the meaning and consequences of crime and to direct one’s behaviors are affected by pathologies related with the family and the child.