Ncr Defense In Canada

In countries which are legislatively and judicially fair and progressive, there exists a provision or series or provisions - which in Canada is known as the Not Criminally Response Due to Mental Disorder (NCRMD/NCR) designation - that aims to protect those who suffer from mental illness from the punishments and penalties endured in the criminal court system. The NCR defense in particular is a piece of legislation in the Canadian Criminal Code, which essentially states that a person is deemed Not Criminally Responsible of whatever offence they had committed on account that the person was suffering from a mental disorder or was declared legally insane at the time of the incident and was unable to appreciate their actions or that what they did

One of the problems with the application of the NCR defense in relation to youth is that it is difficult to properly diagnose MI in offenders whose minds are still changing and growing. Between the ages of 11-16, the adolescent mind sees an increased period of grey matter development, thought to be associated with mental processing which is followed shortly by a sudden loss in grey matter as the brain begins replacing it with information-transmitting synapses (Mulford et. al, 2004). The mind of the child is still young and immature, by nature and design. Therefore, unlike grown adults suffering from MI, diagnoses of many disorders cannot be confirmed in youth and many offenders won't have obvious mental illness symptoms until later in life. Oftentimes symptoms will be confused for normal, transient development issues (like common delinquency) and vice versa (Mulford et. al, 2004). Confusions like this and the lack of distinction between legitimate mental illness and common delinquency make court proceedings difficult when the NCR plea is utilized. It is easy for an offender to be mistakenly sent to adult criminal court or to be sent to a youth detention centre if their mental state isn't thoroughly

This clearly poses yet another problem as both groups have different mental capacities and therefore cannot be defined in the same way in terms of mental disorders. There is a commonly known paradox which is linked to the NCR defense and its lack of effectiveness in the youth criminal justice system, in that an "adult offender who, due to a learning disability, is functioning at the level of a ten year-old would, in all likelihood, have a defense available to him or her, whereas a child offender of ten in all likelihood would not" (Delmage, 2013). There aren't often times when a youth's request to be deemed not criminally responsible is accepted due to the fact that the mental capacity and competency thresholds for adults are seen in criminal cases as normal levels of competency for youth. The onus then falls on the offender to prove that they legitimately suffer from a mental illness and not normal immaturity or competency issues associated with developing