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The article is aimed to offer an approach of the state of the art of the practices in legal ability determination proceedings in people affected by psychotic disorders and their competency to vote. Therefore, we offer a revision of the subject with special emphasis in the contribution from psychiatry, linked with capacity evaluation models for the decision-making process, and the report of a brief descriptive study based on the results of legal proceedings carried on by a Family Court in Buenos Aires Province from March 2014 to December 2016.

Over the last 20 years there have been steps forward in the field of scientific research on prediction and handling different violent behaviors. In this work we go over the classic concept of "criminal dangerousness" and the more current of "violence risk assessment". We analyze the evolution of such assessment from the practice of non-structured clinical expert opinion to current actuarial methods and structured clinical expert opinion. Next we approach the problem of assessing physical violence risk analyzing the HCR-20 (Assessing Risk for Violence) and we also review the classic and complex subject of the relation between mental disease and violence. One of the most problematic types of violence, difficult to assess and predict, is sexual violence. We study the different actuarial and sexual violence risk prediction instruments and in the end we advise an integral approach to the problem. We also go through partner violence risk assessment, describing the most frequently used scales, especially SARA (Spouse Assault Risk Assessment) and EPV-R. Finally we give practical advice on risk assessment, emphasizing the importance of having maximum information about the case, carrying out a clinical examination, psychopathologic exploration and the application of one of the described risk assessment scales. We'll have to express an opinion about the dangerousness/risk of future violence from the subject and some recommendations on the conduct to follow and the most advisable treatment., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier España, S.L. All rights reserved.)

In this paper, the presence of personality disorders in a forensic sample is analysed using the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-II). The sample was made up of 86 individuals from both civil and criminal settings: plaintiffs in family cases and complainants and defendants in various crimes, especially in partner abuse. The results reveal a great number of records of Compulsive Personality Disorder, reaching 70%, regardless of whether they were from the civil or the criminal setting or whether they were a plaintiff or a defendant. It is concluded that this inventory seems to lack statistical validity for this purpose. Moreover, this test may only describe the typical characteristics of forensic evaluation rather than the personality of the individuals assessed, and it is oversensitive to context; hence, the conclusions derived from the use of the MCMI-II in the forensic field may accept as valid a great deal of distorted or unspecific profiles.

In this article we describe topics associated with violence and aggressiveness. We review the psychological, social and neurobiological bases of aggressiveness according to different theoretical views. Different ideas about dangerousness are listed, and at the same time we try to delimit this term within the forensic psychiatric field. We classify different types of dangerousness and their relation with related psychiatric disorders. Finally, we locate dangerousness in the Civil and the Criminal Code and we supply scales for its assessment.

The forensic evaluation of sexual offenders and their victims are a very complex task. This concern becomes even more relevant when children have to be assessed. The evaluation process should consider: children's motivation to deceive during forensic assessment; their perception of the assessment process and its influence on their deceptive tendencies; parental issues related to dissimulation among children and the induction of false memories. The article summarize these problems and gives physicians a practical guide for managing this issue.

The present article is a theoretic review of the techniques used to assess the malingering of memory problems in the forensic and legal context. The necessity of instruments to facilitate the detection of malingerers is confirmed. This phenomenon is more relevant in the memory pathology context because their exaggeration or false performance is very common. The reason of this preference is the ease of the simulation of these very well known symptoms. The consequences, economics primarily, of the confirmation of brain damage sequels have produced that malingerers are well informed about the characteristics of this syndrome. This review is focus on, both tests assessing different components of memory, such as the Wechsler Memory Scale III and the California Verbal Learning Test, and tests designed specifically to detect malingering. We also differentiate tests assessing explicit and implicit memory. Likewise, future lines of research are proposed in this important legal context.