Abstract
The author evaluates and discusses 20 forensic-psychiatric expertises of sixteen-year-old delinquents accused of grave offenders. In Polish law sixteen-year-old grave offenders can be tried according to one of two different normative acts, the Juvenile Delinquent Act or the Criminal Law Act. The above situation generates confusion and irregularities in psychiatric assessment. The aim of the present study was to point to some of these irregularities. Following analysis of 20 forensic-psychiatric expertises of sixteen-year-old offenders the author stresses the following irregularities: the considerable delay in assessment, unsuitable choice of experts, limiting the scope of the assessment to mere routine problems of adults, the fact that the forensic assessment precedes the psychological-pedagogical one. The present author also points to the ineptitude of some courts who fail to specify the range of the required assessment.