A case of child abandonment--reflections on criminal responsibility in adolescence

The issue of responsibility for delinquent acts has been examined in the light of adolescence as a unique developmental stage, and it has been proposed that the degree to which one should hold an adolescent morally responsible for his/her acts corresponds to the degree to which he/she has individuated from his/her family and become a psychologic adult. A case was presented in which the crime of child abandonment was committed by an adolescent who was still deeply enmeshed interpersonally with her mother and had not yet achieved a separate identity as an adult. The psychiatric findings were presented to the Court after a plea bargain had been struck and prior to sentencing. They conveyed the belief, in lay terms, that moral responsibility for this crime was collective, to be borne in part by the perpetrator's family. The Court responded humanely with a suspended sentence, conditioned on psychotherapy, allowing the young mother to remain together with her first child. Not only does this article suggest the value of an understanding of adolescent psychiatric concepts for the forensic psychiatrist, it also suggests that the more subtle aspects of assigning responsibility can be better evaluated by the court at the time of sentencing than during the trial phase.