Remodelling criminal insanity: Exploring philosophical, legal, and medical premises of the medical model used in Norwegian law

• This paper clarifies the conceptual space of discussion of legal insanity by considering the virtues of the ‘medical model’ model that has been used in Norway for almost a century. The medical model identifies insanity exclusively with mental disorder, and especially with psychosis, without any requirement that the disorder causally influenced the commission of the crime. We explore the medical model from a transdisciplinary perspective and show how it can be utilised to systematise and reconsider the central philosophical, legal and medical premises involved in the insanity debate. A key concern is how recent transdiagnostic and dimensional approaches to psychosis can illuminate the law's understanding of insanity and its relation to mental disorder. The authors eventually raise the question whether the medical model can be reconstructed into a unified insanity model that is valid across the related disciplinary perspectives, and that moves beyond current insanity models. © 2022 The Authors

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Criminal insanity

Criminal responsibility

Medical model

Mental disorder

Norwegian insanity law

Article

conceptual framework

crime

criminal behavior

criminal justice

criminal law

human

human rights

legal aspect

mental disease

mental health

Norway

philosophy

psychological model

psychosis

punishment

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)