In October 2016 a new Belgian law on internment came in place. To increase the quality of the psychiatric reports, the use of taxation instruments, psychological testing, a wide range of methods and a clear conclusion, are recommended in literature. The aim of the article is to determine how often psychiatric reports meet these criteria. The study sample consists of 82 psychiatric reports from the Commission of Social Defense (CSD) of the judicial district of Ghent. These reports were analyzed on basis of the criteria from the literature.
The use of psychodiagnostic tools and taxation instruments is limited to only a few reports. In most
cases it was unclear how the conclusion concerning the insanity in legal terms is reached. The use of
different methods and sources for information is overall inadequate. The research highlights the need
for a clear format for the psychiatric reports and for better trained psychiatric experts to increase the
quality of these reports.