ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the period from 1997 to 2005, a period during which the New Labour administration sought to shape a new penal policy after 18 years of Conservative government. The aim of this chapter is to analyse how the arrival of New Labour and its particular approach to penal policy and crime control affected strategies in the field of mental health, crime and punishment. Specifically, the analytical focus is on the impact on the ‘dividing practices’ applied to mentally disordered offenders, with a particular emphasis on the prison situation. In investigating this, the first section of this chapter briefly sets out some of the wider social, political and penal context at this time. The second and main section analyses in detail the contours of penal strategies in this area. The final section pulls out some of the central themes raised by the analysis.
