ABSTRACT
This chapter looks into the virtual disappearance and the various actors who are involved in some way: police officers, prosecutors, lawyers, forensic psychiatrists, judges and since 2009, lay judges as well. It discusses the role that forensic psychiatric expertise plays in the making of legal decisions on criminal responsibility. The aligning of psychiatrists’ perspective with the kachiron perspective employed in court thus facilitates a further responsibilization of defendants with a mental disorder. Forensic psychiatrists’ role within the criminal process starts when a public prosecutor asks him or her to provide an evaluation of a suspect whom the police have apprehended and sent on to the public prosecutor. The most important way for psychiatrists to familiarize themselves with the case is that of examining the evidence shown to them by the prosecutor, and in particular: reading the statements provided by the suspect.
