Criminal Law
1.) a.) Observation and psychological testing in the assessment, selection and treatment of mentally ill offenders is important in order to creating a successful treatment program these offenders and to promote the public safety and security. It is difficult task on the part of the criminal justice system to pool together professionals who have the knowledge to understand the consequences imposed by both the criminal justice system and mental health treatment. At the same time, it is recommended that mental health professionals should be able to take into consideration the issues surrounding forensic patients, with the help of forensic clinicians who are tasked to identify the conditions that will justify the release of the patient for outpatient status.
b.) One illustration to justify the importance of observation and psychological testing of mentally ill offenders is to be able to guarantee that such patient will no longer pose a danger or threat to the community. In the event that after the psychological testing and assessment, the results show that the mentally ill offender will still need treatment, the patient will have to be admitted in the proper agency.
Another illustration is when a mentally ill offender in who is undergoing community treatment shall commit a high-profile crime, the agency and the clinician will have to manage a reasonably enraged community and will devote most of their time and efforts to defend themselves as they gather evidence to be used during the litigation of the case. Thus, it is vital to identify high-risk patients so that scarce treatment facilities will only be utilized for those patients who are most likely recover from the treatment to avoid the high costs of hospitalization and the chances of reoffending due to their mental illness or aggressive behavior.
2.) a.) The fitness to stand trial refers to the fitness of the accused to stand trial and may be questioned at any time during the criminal proceedings, which may either be the accused, witness for the defense or prosecution and the court. It deals with the question of whether or not the person’s mental state will allow him or her to comprehend the trial proceedings fully well to prepare for defense.
b) The relevance of fitness to stand trial for forensic mental health is that in the event that the court is uncertain of the aptness and suitability of the accused, he or she can be admitted to a psychiatric hospital and shall have to undergo observation of 30 days at a time.
c) To illustrate fitness to stand trial, the first example is that if a patient who is admitted for observation for a crime wherein there is a probability that death penalty will be imposed, there may be three psychiatrist who may be involved in the decision, namely the superintendent of the psychiatric hospital, a state-appointed psychiatrist and one who is appointed by the defense.
The second example will be a person who is suitable to stand trial is one who have the capability to cooperate with his or her counsel, and at the same time and will be able to design what legal strategy to use. In order to stand as the accused or witness for the defense or prosecution, he or she must have the ability to recall and make a connection of the pertinent facts and events that will establish the person’s motives and actions at the time when the crime was committed. He or she must have to ability to testify on his or her behalf by challenging testimonies of witnesses.
3.) a.) The Criminal Code of Indonesia has recognized the crime of infanticide and has designated the offense as the crime infant-manslaughter, which is punishable by the maximum imprisonment of 7 years under Article 341. There is no provision in the Criminal Code of Indonesia which provides any aggravating or mitigating circumstance involving the crime of infanticide. Hence, there is no other sanction that will increase or decrease the penalty in the event that there are other attendant circumstances to justify an aggravated or mitigated penalty to be imposed on the mother of the victim.
b.) The term infanticide under Criminal Code of Indonesia under Article 341 is defined as the offense committed by a mother who shall deliberately take the life of her child after giving birth shall be guilty of the crime infant-manslaughter, which is punishable by the maximum imprisonment of 7 years. Pursuant to Article 342 of the Criminal Code of Indonesia states that a mother, who for the execution of a decision driven by fear of her forthcoming confinement, with deliberate intent shall take the life of her child soon after the child’s birth, shall be guilty of infanticide, which is punishable by imprisonment of 9 years.
c) Based on the Asia Child Rights (2002), in the study conducted by the forensic team from the University of Indonesia, it was shown that the rate of infanticide in the city of Jakarta has increased as there were 38 new cases of infanticide that were included in the reports as of 2002. In comparison to the previous year, there were only 35 reported cases of infanticide in 2001. In fact, some of the women’s groups in Indonesia argued that the genuine number of infanticide cases is even higher than what was actually reported. Some of the human rights activist groups and women’s groups believe that the crime of infanticide in Jakarta was caused by the legal system of the country which does not acknowledge illegitimate children born. This has resulted to social stigma due to the illegitimate status bestowed upon children born out of wedlock.
The marriage law of Indonesia has declared that children who are born out of wedlock should be considered as illegal in their birth certificates and are not entitled to have a legal claim to their biological fathers. The Criminal Code of Indonesia provides the maximum sentence of 9 years for infanticide. However, the judges provided more lenience when imposing sentence due to the financial burden and social stigma that is concomitant in being a single mother.
d) In Indonesia, the crime of infanticide is called infant-manslaughter, which is punishable by the maximum imprisonment of 7 years under Article 342. However, a mother, who for the execution of a decision driven by fear of her forthcoming confinement, with deliberate intent shall take the life of her child soon after the child’s birth shall be guilty of infanticide, punishable by imprisonment of 9 years.
e) Infanticide can be regarded as a specific offence since there is deliberate intent on the mother to expel the child immediately after delivery from the womb of the mother. The act of the mother is intended to cause physical harm on the infant by using other means to kill the child the moment he or she is born. The element of specific intent is present because the mother is determined to take the life of her child leaving him or her with no chance to survive. Thus, the behavior of the mother, who is resolved and committed to kill the child after giving birth qualifies the crime of infanticide as a specific offense.
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ACR Weekly Newsletter (2003). 2(4) Web. June 5, 2013, from [http://acr.hrschool.org/mainfile.php/0111/56/].
Criminal Code of Indonesia
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