ABSTRACT
Many of the individuals described and discussed in earlier chapters in this book have committed very serious offences that may have been dealt with by long periods of detention, either in mental healthcare or penal establishments. At some point in their stay in such establishments considerations will have arisen concerning their eventual release into the community. In other cases (where there is no record of previous offences) individuals may commit a serious crime such as homicide and subsequent inquiry may reveal that some of the "warning signs" that might have prevented such an occurrence may have been missed; had they been spotted, a tragedy might have been averted. These eventualities have been highlighted in recent years by a large number of mandatory inquiries into homicides committed by patients known to the mental health and allied services (see prologue and
* Some of the material in this chapter is from my (2002) article "Incapacitating the dangerous in England and Wales: High expectations - harsh reality", which appeared in the Journal of Mental Health Law 6, reproduced with permission from Northumbria Law Press.
