ABSTRACT
The social control of so called ‘risky populations’ has always been a goal of criminal justice policy,2 but lately it has become an increasingly overt preoccupation.3 Since the early 1990s mentally disordered people in general, let alone those who have committed criminal offences, are increasingly portrayed as a risky population. A steady procession of inquiries into homicides by former psychiatric in-patients has increased the association in the public mind between mental disorder and dangerousness, leading to increasing demands for protection from crime particularly crimes committed by mentally disordered people, although a survey of homicides since the 1950s shows that homicides by mentally disordered people have not increased (Taylor and Gunn, 1999). This in turn has resulted in a role redefinition whereby risk management has assumed increasing centrality in the role of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, and philosophies of risk management now permeate decision-making in both the psychiatric system and the penal system.
