In 1984, Alan Stone, writing in the Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, stated that "forensic psychiatrists are without any clear guidelines as to what is proper and ethical," adding that because of the nature of psychiatry and the realities of the law, no such guidelines can be drawn. Put starkly, his conclusion was that the practice of forensic psychiatry is fundamenta...

This article describes how the establishment and existence of a forensic psychiatry fellowship program was associated with improvements in general psychiatry residents' scores on the Psychiatry Resident In-training Examination (PRITE). Four consecutive years of general psychiatry residents' PRITE scores spanning 2 years before and 2 years after implementation of the forensic fellowship program ...

The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) was organized in 1969, in large part through the efforts of Dr. Jonas Rappeport. The founders of AAPL emphasized that an important purpose of the organization was to advance knowledge in the area of psychiatry and the law. The science of forensic psychiatry has since been vigorously debated. In 2005, Congress enacted a statute authorizing th...

With the continued growth of the sub-specialty of forensic or sociolegal psychiatry, various models for providing theoretical and clinical experience to the trainee have been proposed.H In large part, these models for training have been based upon specific assumptions as to the primary function of the sub-specialty. For example, Pollack,4 who defines forensic psychiatry as "limited to the appli...

Guidelines for conducting forensic psychiatric consultations and evaluations have not been clearly established. The authors offer and discuss such guidelines, which are based upon the boundary guidelines in general psychiatric practice, ethics principles in general psychiatry, ethics principles in forensic psychiatry, and the relevant case and statutory law. These guidelines are intended to ass...

At the October 1979 annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, it was first formally proposed that a Committee be established to develop standards for post-graduate Fellowship training programs in psychiatry and the law and to develop an accreditation procedure for such programs. This will report on the initial activities of the Committee and some of the standards that ar...

Practitioners of forensic psychiatry have come under intense scrutiny lately, partly because of the furor surrounding the Hinckley verdict but also as a consequence of growing controversy over the nature and future development of forensic psychiatry. This article does not address the question of the role of psychiatrists in the highly visible criminal justice system but rather inquires into the...