The 3 psychological elements of imputability

In Psychology, the term "imputability" refers to the degree to which a person has been aware of their criminal acts and the will that he had to carry them out.

This idea is of utmost importance in legal processes, because depending on how responsible or not what has been the person of her own behavior, can be condemned or exempted from paying for it.

On the other hand, imputability is an aspect always taken into account in the commission of any crime and, as it is of a strictly psychological nature, this is one of the main areas of intervention of forensic psychology. Let's find out why below.

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What is imputability from the point of view of Psychology?

In forensic psychology, imputability is understood as the ability of a person to be held responsible for a legally reprehensible act that is believed to have committed. This is one of the areas where forensic psychologists are most useful for the management of justice, but this does not mean that it is the task of a psychologist to determine whether a person is responsible for their acts or not.

The decision to consider someone as imputable corresponds to the administration of justice, which relies on the expert judgment of forensic psychologists and thus makes a well-informed decision.

The idea of ​​imputability is ancient, being found in legislative texts of Greeks, Romans and, even, in Hebrew law. Since this idea existed, judicial systems around the world have incorporated different variations of it over time. The main concept behind this idea is that a criminal act cannot be punishable unless the person who has committed it has the ability to recognize it as such and has freely chosen to wear it finished.

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Psychological elements involved in the ability to understand what is done

For a fact to be recognized as imputable, the individual must be able to understand that his conduct or the omission of it constitutes a crime and that it implies a criminal punishment. Achieving this understanding requires that the individual have three capacities or dimensions, although the first two are considered fundamental.

1. Cognitive

Cognitive ability is synonymous with intelligence. Make reference to the individual's ability to understand and incorporate information from the environment, understanding what is happening around him.

Depending on the degree of intelligence possessed by the person who committed the crime, he or she will or will not be aware of the illicit nature of their actions and the consequences that their conduct implies.

• Related article: "Cognition: definition, main processes and operation"

2. Volitional

Volitional capacity refers to the will to act of the subject based on their wishes or intentions, that is, if he has acted illicitly on purpose. This dimension is related to the motivational aspects of behavior and is made up of two main aspects:

• Willingness or potential to commit a crime.
• Ability to act in accordance with what the laws expect of the individual.

3. Judicial or trial

Judicial ability refers to the ability of the individual to decide and issue a behavior according to his criteria and interest in the problems generated by the environment. This third dimension is sometimes combined with the volitional dimension.

• Related article: "Legal Psychology: the point of union between Psychology and Law"

Who is liable in a judicial process?

Thus, taking these three dimensions into account, it is considered that a person is responsible for an unlawful act when He has done knowing what he was doing, he was doing it completely freely and with the clear intention of taking it cape.

This idea of ​​imputability is the same by which most criminal codes of democratic nations are governed., although with its variations, and that if any of these capacities is lacking, the perpetrator is exempted from a crime of criminal responsibility.

In the Spanish case, the imputability is delimited in article 20 of the penal code, in points 1 and 2:

"1.º He who at the time of committing the criminal offense, due to any anomaly or psychic alteration, cannot understand the illegality of the act or act in accordance with that understanding.

Transient mental disorder will not exempt from penalty when it had been caused by the subject with the purpose of committing the crime or had foreseen or should have foreseen its commission".

“2.º Whoever, at the time of committing the criminal offense, is in a state of full intoxication due to the consumption of alcoholic beverages, toxic drugs, narcotics, substances psychotropic or other that produce analogous effects, provided that it was not sought for the purpose of committing it or its commission had not been foreseen or should have been foreseen, or he is under the influence of a withdrawal syndrome, due to his dependence on such substances, which prevents him from understanding the illegality of the act or acting in accordance with that understanding."

Who is in charge of assessing these capacities?

The professionals who are in charge of assessing psychological capacities related to imputability are forensic psychologists.

Although imputability itself is a legal concept, there are many psychological aspects that can alter the condition of a person responsible for a crime. Among these psychological aspects or determinants of their behavior we have mental disorders such as personality, drug addiction, intellectual disability, intoxication ...

But as we have commented before, psychologists are not in charge of assessing whether or not an individual is attributable to a crime. The figure of the forensic psychologist does not demand or defend or judge, since legal accountability is the task of the judges. What forensic psychologists do is establish psychic causality between the accused and the acts committed, understood as psychic imputability.

To determine how responsible an individual is for their own conduct it is necessary to carry out a thorough evaluation to see if there is a mental disorder that explains it or any other psychological condition relevant to the case.

In addition to this, an analysis is essential to determine how this disorder has diminished the individual's ability to understand the unlawful act and / or their ability to have acted differently, establishing a causal relationship between the disorder and the crime task.

It should be said that, during the forensic evaluation, not only the intelligence and the will of the subject at the time of committing the crime are taken into account. The human mind and behavior are too complex to be reduced to how conscious the subject of his acts is and whether there has been an express desire to commit the crime. As in any psychological assessment, first the case must be studied taking into account its particularities, design an accurate evaluation and, based on the data obtained, prepare a psychological expert report.

Causes of imputability

The causes behind an individual not being aware of her behavior or understanding the seriousness of the situation are various. The responsibility or irresponsibility of the subject with respect to the criminal act that he has committed determines the presence or absence of imputability and, also, determines the causes of it. In the Spanish case and that of many developed countries, A subject will be unimpeachable before a typical and unlawful conduct when any of the following circumstances occurs:

• Metal disorder
• Intellectual disability
• Serious disturbance of consciousness
• Be under 16 years of age

1. Mental disorders, psychoses and psychopathies

Mental disorders, also called mental illnesses in the legal field, correspond to the general designation for any major mental disturbance of organic or emotional.

In the legal field, they are understood as conditions characterized by loss of contact with reality and often with hallucinations and illusions. In the case of psychosis there would be an alteration of intelligence, while in psychopathies there would be an alteration of the personality.

In forensic psychology, to determine whether or not there is a mental disorder and how it influences the responsibility of an individual in relation to the crime committed, the following criteria are usually followed:

• Biological or psychiatric: the diagnosis is enough to determine the inimputability.
• Psychological: the manifestation of abnormality at the time of the crime is enough.
• Mixed. The judge determines the imputability based on a psychiatric diagnosis based on when the abnormality manifests itself.

2. Intellectual disability

Intellectual disability implies a serious lack of intelligence, also known as oligophrenia (from "oligo", "little or no" and "phreen", "intelligence"). In the legal field, it would be defined as any neurological syndrome that implies a marked intellectual deficit, be it congenital or early acquired, and that It has a global impact on both the personality and the degree of independence of the affected person. This situation can occur for the following reasons:

• Genetics: intellectual deficit explained by Mendel's laws.
• Chromosomal alteration (p. g., Down syndrome, trisomy 18, Turner, Klinefelter ...)
• Germ: exogenous cause in antepartum (syphilis), childbirth (asphyxia) or postpartum (accidental fall of the newborn)

Deaf-muteness and blindness would also fall within this circumstance, as long as it is from birth. Although these two conditions are not synonymous with intellectual disability, it is considered that a person born with brain problems deafness and blindness, especially if they occur in combination as is the case with deaf-muteness, will not fully develop intelligence or ability to know his environment, which is why despite presenting an intelligence within normality they would be treated as oligophrenic.

3. Serious disturbance of consciousness

By serious disturbance of conscience we mean that whoever committed the crime he was under the influence of something or someone that prevented him from acting consciously. The subject was in a situation in which he suffered a profound alteration of the perception of reality. Within this type of circumstance we find:

1. Alcoholic drunkenness

The effects of alcohol They have diminished the cognitive processes of the subject and have reduced their voluntary control of the acts, something that has occurred at the time of committing the crime. Within this circumstance there are different categories.

• Fortuitous: involuntary. It involves the ingestion of an excessive amount of alcohol for the subject that has caused him acute intoxication. It is exculpatory.
• Guilty: voluntary. Occasional or habitual ingestion without moderation, but with no intention of getting drunk. It is mitigating.
• Painful: voluntary and premeditated. Ingestion with the clear intention of later committing a crime and obtaining a defense.

In turn, depending on the degree of drunkenness that the subject manifests at the time of committing the crime, we have: Full or complete: it is the state of confusion where the subject is totally drunk and deprived of intelligence and Will; semi-complete or incomplete: the subject has a certain capacity to want and understand what he does, although not in a lucid way.

If the drunkenness is fortuitous and full, it is considered exempt from responsibility, while if it is partial it is mitigating. In the event that it is guilty, it responds by guilt and, if it is intentional, it is considered a fully conscious crime.

2. Sleep

During sleep there is a situation that excludes the ability to understand and know and, therefore, there would be no guilt. An example of this situation would be that of the mother crushing her newborn baby.

We would also include sleepwalking in this situation, a sleep problem characterized by aptitude of the subject to perform acts typical of the waking state, only that it is deeply asleep. It is considered a chargeable situation.

Special mention requires the case of hypnotism, a state of deep suggestion that, as a general rule, is also unimpeachable, as long as one has acted behaving as an instrument of what the hypnotist has ordered his victim.

3. Extreme pain and passionate states

There are certain medical conditions that can momentarily alter the will and intelligence of the affected person. Extreme pain is considered extenuating and, in case it destroys reason or causes the affected person to act as if he had entered an episode of psychosis, it is usually excusing. The passionate state is mitigating.

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Social utility of the determination of imputability

One might think that how conscious an individual is or is not when committing a crime is not relevant when it comes to penalizing him for it. Committing a crime implies certain social consequences regardless of the will and intelligence of the person who has perpetrated it. And, taking this into account, the fact that he suffers from a mental disorder or intellectual disability would not be a sufficient excuse to reduce his sentence or exempt him from the crime.

This idea is usually based on the belief that the law and penalties are made to avenge the reprehensible behavior of those who have committed a crime. Many today continue to see jail and punitive measures as simple punishments to give their own medicine to those who have done wrong, when in reality These measures have the objective of reintegrating the individual and make him reflect on her behavior, understand what he has done wrong in order to prevent him from doing it again. commit.

In the case of people with altered will and intelligence, if they do not understand what they have done wrong or their behavior is the result of suffering from a mental disorder, what they need are not jail sentences, but special treatments for their psychological conditions.

They will also require an educational program to make them see why their behavior has been legally reprehensible and provide them with the tools and strategies so that they do not commit it again. Condemning someone who is not aware of her actions is a highly unproductive measure that does not guarantee that the subject will not do wrong again.