Care Or Custody?

Care Or Custody? PDF

Author: Judith M. Laing

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 9780198268185

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In recent years there has been growing concern and controversy surrounding the care and treatment of mentally disordered offenders. Consequently, there have been a series of legislative and policy developments during the last decade, which have led to changes in attitude and the way that suchoffender-patients are treated. Such changes have focused primarily upon timely therapeutic intervention and diversion from the criminal justice system. Care or Custody?: Mentally Disordered Offenders in the Criminal Justice System considers these issues in depth. It is a comprehensive and scholarly text which identifies some of the practical difficulties that occur when mentally disordered offenders come into contact with the criminal justicesystem. The law in this area is complex and this book will enable professionals involved in the subject to gain a better understanding of the law and policy with regard to mentally disordered offenders. Judith Laing also analyses and addresses some of the theoretical issues and concerns surrounding the treatment and detention of mentally disordered offenders. The book will therefore assist and inform legal, mental health, and related practitioners working in this field, and will also provide atheoretical overview of the law for academics and students.

Protecting the Public?

Protecting the Public? PDF

Author: Tessa Boyd-Caine

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 0415627966

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The separation of powers and independent, judicial decision-making are generally accepted as hallmarks of the rule of law in democratic societies. Yet the exercise of executive discretion remains an important aspect of criminal justice in many areas. Protecting the Public? explores the tension between the rights of individuals detained under criminal and mental health law and the responsibility for public protection in the little-known world of executive discretion over mentally disordered offenders. It is based on extensive and unique empirical research conducted at the UK Home Office, with legal and clinical practitioners, with civil society organisations and by reference to comparative jurisdictions. Central questions considered include: executive, judicial and tribunal decision-making; mental health and criminal law reform regarding serious or high-risk offenders; the influence of human rights law on policy and practice; and the role of civil society, particularly victim interest groups, in public policy. Through its analysis of decisions to release 'high-risk' offenders, this book goes to the heart of the public protection agenda - examining how 'the public' is constructed and what protection is provided by the exercise of executive discretion. This book will be of interest to academic and other researchers, students, policy-makers, law reformers, commentators and anyone interested in the field of criminal justice, mental health law and public policy.

Mentally Disordered Offenders

Mentally Disordered Offenders PDF

Author: John Monahan

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1489903518

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In its narrowest sense, "mentally disordered offender" refers to the approximately twenty thousand persons per year in the United States who are institutionalized as not guilty by reason of insanity, incompetent to stand trial, and mentally disordered sex offenders, as well as those prisoners transferred to mental hospitals. The real importance of mentally disordered offenders, however, may not lie in this figure. Rather, it may reside in the symbolic role that mentally disordered offenders play for the rest of the legal system. The 3,140 persons residing in state institutions on an average day in 1978 as not guilty by reason of insanity (see Chapter 4), for example, are surely worthy of concern in their own right. But they represent only 1% of the 307,276 persons residing in state and federal prisons in the same period (U. S. Dept. of Justice, 1981). From a purely numeric point of view, the insanity defense truly is "much ado about little" (Pasewark & Pasewark, 1982). The central importance of understanding these persons, however, is that they serve a symbolic function in justifying the imprisonment of the other 99%. The insanity defense, as Stone (1975) has noted, is "the exception that proves the rule. " By exculpating a relatively few people from being criminally responsible for their behavior, the law inculpates all other law violators as liable for social sanction.

Mentally Disordered Offenders

Mentally Disordered Offenders PDF

Author: David Webb

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 9780415180108

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Presses the case for better mental health care for mentally disturbed law breakers, and the need to divert them from unnecessary imprisonment.

Mental Health and Criminal Justice

Mental Health and Criminal Justice PDF

Author: Linda A. Teplin

Publisher: SAGE Publications, Incorporated

Published: 1984-10

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13:

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This is the first book to examine the relationship between the American mental health and criminal justice systems from a social science perspective. The contributors -- esteemed scholars from the fields of criminology, law and psychiatry -- illuminate critical areas of the mental health/criminal justice process: how laws and statutes govern the treatment of mentally disordered offenders, how a change in one procedure affects the entire intersystem process, how police manage the deinstitutionalized mentally ill, and how deviant behaviour is defined and treated.

Violence, Crime and Mentally Disordered Offenders

Violence, Crime and Mentally Disordered Offenders PDF

Author: Sheilagh Hodgins

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2000-06-08

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 0471977276

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The mentally disordered criminal is a public nightmare, and themanagement of these offenders can be driven as much by politicaland economic concerns as by scientific evidence and professionaljudgement within the fields of mental health and correctionservices. This book aims to provide a critical and focused reviewof knowledge and best practice in this field for mental health andcorrection professionals and for those concerned with policy andmanagement of services for these offenders. Mentally disordered offenders include offenders who suffer fromschizophrenia, major affective disorders, personality disorders(including psychopathy), brain damage, and mental retardation. Thetopic is of increasing importance because of the growth ofcommunity psychiatry, and the growing community programmes foroffenders, and also because of the growing pressures on thoseinstitutions which deal with offenders and care for the mentallydisordered or disabled. Professionals in these fields will welcomethis book which: * Provides a review of approaches to treatment, accessible to awide mental health and forensic readership * Relates treatment approaches to specific mental problems, andreviews evidence of effectiveness * features a truly international group of authors bringing togethera wide variety of approaches, scientific research, and practicalexperience of important programmes for treatment and prevention "Few recent texts provide both the depth and breadth necessary tounderstand the vexing behaviour of mentally disordered offenders.Drs Hodgins and Muller-Isberner, a remarkable pairing of researchand clinical expertise, have put together a highly readable andsuperb resource for anyone interested in this interface of seriousmental illness and criminal behavior. The authors of theconstituent chapters are leading authorities in their respectiveareas and have provided thoughtful commentary on the most recentinternational literature. This is a first-rate treatment of arapidly growing and fascinating field." Marvin Swartz, DukeUniversity, USA

The Sociology of the Mentally Disordered Offender

The Sociology of the Mentally Disordered Offender PDF

Author: Tom Mason

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-06-11

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1317882792

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In recent years mentally disordered offenders have attracted considerable attention in the media and there has been heated public debate as to the best treatment and prevention of re-offending. Simultaneously there has been a significant increase in the amount of research, specialist courses and training devoted to this particular, high profile area of mental health care. This is as a result of considerable public pressure to develop effective theory and practice for diagnosing and treating this patient group.A Sociology of the Mentally Disordered Offender provides a concise, and most importantly, accessible guide to the main theoretical issues from a sociological perspective as a counterbalance to the predominant medical model. Having established a theoretical framework through the exploration of topics such as the relationship between crime and mental disorder the authors look at the processes by which offenders are referred either to criminal justice or the mental health service system, their subsequent treatment and management, and the problem of re-offending. A final chapter looks at ways in which care and management of these patients may be effectively developed in the future.

Mental Health and Crime

Mental Health and Crime PDF

Author: Jill Peay

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-10-04

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1136906290

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Does mental disorder cause crime? Does crime cause mental disorder? And if either of these could be proved to be true what consequences should stem for those who find themselves deemed mentally disordered offenders? Mental Health and Crime examines the nature of the relationship between mental disorder and crime. It concludes that the broad definition of what is an all too common human condition – mental disorder – and the widespread occurrence of an equally all too common human behaviour – that of offending – would make unlikely any definitive or easy answer to such questions. For those who offend in the context of mental disorder, many aspects of the criminal justice process, and of the disposals that follow, are adapted to take account of a relationship between mental disorder and crime. But if the very relationship is questionable, is the way in which we deal with such offenders discriminatory? Or is it perhaps to their benefit to be thought of as less responsible for their offending than fully culpable offenders? The book thus explores not only the nature of the relationship, but also the human rights and legal issues arising. It also looks at some of the permutations in the therapeutic process that can ensue when those with mental health problems are treated in the context of their offending behaviour.

Crime, Punishment, and Mental Illness

Crime, Punishment, and Mental Illness PDF

Author: Patricia Erickson

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2008-07-18

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0813545080

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Hundreds of thousands of the inmates who populate the nation's jails and prison systems today are identified as mentally ill. Many experts point to the deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals in the 1960s, which led to more patients living on their own, as the reason for this high rate of incarceration. But this explanation does not justify why our society has chosen to treat these people with punitive measures. In Crime, Punishment, and Mental Illness, Patricia E. Erickson and Steven K. Erickson explore how societal beliefs about free will and moral responsibility have shaped current policies and they identify the differences among the goals, ethos, and actions of the legal and health care systems. Drawing on high-profile cases, the authors provide a critical analysis of topics, including legal standards for competency, insanity versus mental illness, sex offenders, psychologically disturbed juveniles, the injury and death rates of mentally ill prisoners due to the inappropriate use of force, the high level of suicide, and the release of mentally ill individuals from jails and prisons who have received little or no treatment.

Punishing the Mentally Ill

Punishing the Mentally Ill PDF

Author: Bruce A. Arrigo

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0791488438

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A powerful, sophisticated, and original critique on how the disciplines of law and psychiatry behave and on how the mental health and justice systems operate, Punishing the Mentally Ill reveals where, how, and why the identity and humanity of persons with psychiatric disorders are consciously and unconsciously denied. Author Bruce A. Arrigo contends that despite periodic and well-intentioned efforts at reform, the current law-psychiatry system functions to punish the mentally ill for being different. The book synthesizes a wide range of mainstream and critical literature in sociology, law, philosophy, history, psychology, and psychoanalysis to establish a new theory of punishment at the law-psychiatry divide. To situate the analysis, enduring psycholegal issues are explored including the meaning of mental illness, definitions and predictions of dangerousness, the ethics of advocacy, the right to community-based treatment, the logic of forensic courtroom verdicts, transcarceration, and the execution of mentally disordered offenders among others. Punishing the Mentally Ill shows that current mental disability law research, programming, and policy are seriously flawed and that wholesale reform is necessary if the goals of citizen justice, social well-being, and humanism are to be realized.