A New Perspective on Safety Measures Imposed on Mentally Retarded Criminal Offenders
A New Perspective on Safety Measures Imposed on Mentally Retarded Criminal Offenders

Summary/Abstract: Safety measures are both a way of isolating the person who committed a criminal offence from society, with the purpose of protecting citizens, and at the same time a form of protection for the perpetrator, against whom the most appropriate measures are taken - from from the point of view of the the criminal justice system - in consideration of their particular situation. Among the categories of perpetrators to whom safety measures are addressed, those with mental retardation represent a specific category in that, unlike other psychically ill offenders, their degree of perceiving the consequences of their actions and their own guilt is extremely low, and sometimes it is even impossible for them to understand the significance of their own deeds. The present article aims to highlight the specific elements of safety measures imposed on mentally retarded criminal offenders from a theoretical perspective, analyzing the concepts of deviance and delinquency by correspondence with irresponsibility.

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