Howard Zonana M.D.

When I first became interested in forensic psychiatry, there was little connection between law and psychiatry in the City of New Haven, the State of Connecticut, or the Yale campus. In the mid-1970’s, I joined up with Marc Rubenstein and Lansing Crane, who were trying to create a forensic psychiatry program. They created the Yale Law and Psychiatry Division. The Division is part of the Yale School of Medicine Psychiatry Department and Connecticut Mental Health Center. It is made up of four sections – forensic services, the New Haven Court Clinic, the Jail Diversion Program and research and scholarship. The staff includes licensed psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and social workers as well as a training program in Forensic Psychiatry with funding for four fellows chosen annually through a competitive selection process. The work focuses on evaluations for the courts in civil and criminal matters, e.g. competency, criminal responsibility, pre-sentence evaluations, psychic harm.