Dangerousness, Mental Disorder, and Politics (From Dangerousness: Probability and Prediction, Psychiatry and Public Policy, P 25-40, 1985, Christopher D Webster, et al, eds. -- See NCJ-110751)

• NCJ Number: 110753
• Author(s): C Greenland
• Date Published: 1985
• Length: 16 pages
• Sale Source: Cambridge University Press
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Psychiatry, no less than other professional disciplines operates in a political, cultural, and social context. The expression 'violent and dangerous' in the context of mental disorder represents a sociopolitical judgment rather than a psychiatric diagnosis.

Abstract

The intrusion of politics in clinical assessment can be seen in a Canadian study showing that less dangerous homosexual pedophiles received more severe sentences than more dangerous sexual offenders including violent heterosexual rapists, illustrating the Canadian Government's punitive attitude toward homosexuality and the use of psychiatry as an instrument of repression. In addition to political influences, predictions of dangerousness suffer from methodological flaws that contribute to high error rates, including both false positives and false negatives. Nevertheless, protective and indeterminate sentences will remain a reality, and psychiatrists will continue to be asked for predictions of dangerousness. As actuarial and purely clinical approaches to prediction are ineffective, alternative strategies, such as phenomenological approaches, which consider all the circumstances of the offense, the offender, and the victim, are needed. Case histories, 2 notes, and 38 references.