Family ties and delinquency: Two unusual cases

Two cases are presented, which were subject to expert psychiatric evaluation during criminal proceedings, and in which deviant behaviour in young adults appears to be causally associated with severe mental disorder in their mothers and with severe pathological family functioning. In the first case, a young man killed first his father and then, after an interval of 10 years, his mother. In the second case, the mother and grandmother of a child aged 15 had prevented virtually all contact with the outside world (school, friends, outside activities of any kind) over a period of 10 years. These cases illustrate that expert evaluation should not be limited to an individual (evaluation of diagnosis and of criminal responsibility) but should be linked to an assessment of the functioning of the entire family group and to the psychopathology of other family members.