Fitness to Plead: A Conceptual and Empirical Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Fitness to Plead: A Conceptual and Empirical Study
IRAS ID
142484
Contact name
Penelope Brown
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 1 months, 19 days
Research summary
The right to a fair trial is a fundamental human right. For a trial to be fair the defendant must be “fit to plead”. This is currently defined by the “Pritchard Test” which considers whether the defendant can understand the charges, enter a plea, instruct a lawyer and follow proceedings. When someone is unfit to plead, often due to mental disorder, they are not tried but diverted from the criminal justice system e.g. sent to hospital for treatment.
The Prichard test dates back to 1836 and is badly in need of reform. It is not up-to-date with modern legal or psychiatric thinking and there are concerns that many vulnerable people are tried unfairly. In 2010, the Law Commission published a consultation paper which criticised the test and outlined a new approach. They argued that the test should focus on the defendant’s decision-making capacity, and called for a standardised psychiatric instrument to support legal professionals in determining unfitness to plead.
The aim of this project is to answer that call. It comprises:
1. a quantitative study of targeted populations in the criminal justice system using a video-based clinical instrument for assessing fitness to plead (FTP-tool);
2. a follow-up qualitative study to probe the decision-making capacity of selected defendants;
3. a focus group with judges and other professionals, using vignettes drawn from the study, to seek expert consensus on the determination of fitness.
The purpose of this three-stage approach is to test and refine the video-based assessment instrument, comparing its results with the “gold standard” of judicial opinion, and generating suggested ‘cut off’ scores to define and estimate the prevalence of ‘unfitness’. In addition, the study will generate “good practice” guidelines for conducting fitness assessments, while also providing empirically robust data about risk factors.REC name
London - South East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/LO/1377
Date of REC Opinion
26 Sep 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion