Criminal Responsibility

Criminal responsibility evaluations are inherently complicated because it requires a clinician to retrospectively determine if a mental illness or other qualified mental impairment interfered with an individual’s ability to differentiate right from wrong or control their behaviors. The review of collateral information is important when making such determinations. This chapter will review how data from social media platforms, such as social networking sites (SNS) can play a pivotal role in understanding an individual’s mental state. This chapter will also discuss unique clinical and ethical challenges that arise when using social media as collateral information in criminal responsibility evaluations