Forensic Psychiatry sits at the intersection of law and mental health, covering risk assessment, competency, criminal responsibility, civil capacity, and the design of safe, therapeutic services. This page translates principles into defensible practice: structured professional judgment for violence/self-harm risk; clear documentation; and ethics that separate treatment from evaluation. If you’re attending a forensic mental health conference, you’ll find pathways that coordinate courts, corrections, hospitals, and community re-entry with continuity of medications, MOUD, and psychosocial care. Because equity and human rights matter, we highlight stigma-reduction, language access, and trauma-informed environments.

Implementation demands rigor and humility. We outline how to frame opinions, withstand cross-examination, and guard confidentiality boundaries. In clinical services, we emphasize suicide prevention, de-escalation, and meaningful activity; discharge plans include housing, work, and family reconnection. Specialty topics—sex-offense risk management, neurodevelopmental disability, and women’s forensic care—receive tailored considerations. For CL-psychiatry linkage on admission and discharge, see Consultation-Liaison and SUD.