ABSTRACT
The topic of the relationship between mental disorder and crime is usually treated as rather marginal to the main concerns of criminological theorising. It is argued here that the topic needs better to be integrated within mainstream criminology, as it raises issues of fundamental importance. There are powerful reasons for believing that the issue of ‘mental disorder’ is of considerable significance to our understanding of criminal behaviour and how it is now dealt with.
The first section presents a brief history of the notion of criminal responsibility as it relates to mental disorder. This context is necessary as, despite the long history of the ‘insanity defence’, there are still fundamental disagreements about the nature of insanity as it pertains to criminal behaviour.
The second section explores the medical and legal definitions of insanity and diminished responsibility for taking the life of others that were ushered in by the 1959 Mental Health Act in England and Wales. It is argued that despite the apparent turn to medical expertise, the legal system remains highly ambivalent about the status of these experts and their categories. Debates over the revision of the Mental Health Act in England and Wales that occurred in the twenty-first century reflect some of these considerable difficulties.
The third section explores further the most controversial category of mental disorder, that of ‘psychopathy’, or the ‘antisocial personality disorders’. These are the most significant disorders in relation to crime, but controversy over their status starkly reveals conflict about how we understand the nature of insanity.
