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Law and Personality Disorder: Human Rights, Human Risks, and Rehabilitation
Context
A diagnosis of personality disorder can be very stigmatizing, and the evidence base for treatment is not robust. Policies that aim to identify, detain and treat individuals who are thought to be ‘dangerous’ due to a personality disorder are therefore questionable, and risk violating individuals’ human rights. This book examines why such policies become so alluring to legal and political actors looking for a solution to the problem of serious violent and sexual offending.
The research
Combining insights from criminology, psychiatry, psychology, and law, this book unpicks competing images of ‘dangerous’ offenders and the dilemmas they present. It demonstrates that courts tend to legitimize both punishment and coercive measures taken against offenders with mental disorders and to downplay the significance of human rights. But the law also has the resources to resist such measures, and this book therefore puts forward modest reform proposals