The pronouncement of the internment measure: an automatic decision in the absence of specialized actors?
To date, little scholarly research has been conducted on the judicial phase of internment. The current study aims to fill this gap through an analysis of all the files opened in 2019 and 2020 in the three French-­speaking Chambers for the Protection of Society (KBM). Through this files study, the following aspects of the judicial phase to internment were identified: procedural characteristics of the forensic psychiatric expert examination (commissioners, experts chosen, adversarial character of the expertise), the proportion with which the sentencing courts or the investigating courts pronounce internment, the motivation for imposing internment, the profile of the interned persons (sex, nationality, criminal record, acts committed, diagnosis in the forensic psychiatric expert report), the prevalence of deprivation of liberty during the judicial phase and its influence on the initial decision of the KBM, and victim(s’) participation in the procedure. The contribution presents these results and offers some thoughts on them.