Madness and Crime

This book provides an authoritative and highly readable review of the relationship between madness and crime by one of the leading authorities in the field. The book is divided into four parts, each essay focusing on selected features of madness which have relevance to contemporary society. Part 1 is about madness itself, exploring three main models-cognitive, statistical, and emotional. Part 2 is a short discussion on madness, genius and creativity. Part 3 is about the much neglected area of compulsion, an issue that has largely disappeared from public debate. The mad may have moved from victim to violator, yet fundamental questions remain -in particular how to justify compulsory detention, and who should undertake the process? The answers to these questions have sociological, ethical and jurisprudential elements, and cannot just re resolved by reference to medical authorities. Part 4 is about the links between madness and crime -focusing less on the question and nature of criminal responsibility and the various defences that go with this, more on the links between madness and crime and which particular crimes are linked with which types of disorder.

Part 1: Some Thoughts on the Nature of Madness 1. Introduction and overview 2. Madness and the disease model 3. An empirical theory of madness 4. Empirical, statistical and emotional theories compared 5. An assessment of empiricist theories of madness Part 2: Madness as genius, and madness as an aid to creativity Part 3: Restraining the mad: justifications for compulsory detention 6. Detaining the mad 7. De jure and de facto detentions 8. A note on liberty 9. Mental health law and formal law 10. Typical legal justifications and their limitations 11. The impact of compulsion 12. Who does the detaining? 13. Paternalism v. autonomy 14. Summary and conclusion Part 4: Madness and crime 15. Some methodological problems in the madness and crime nexus 16. An overview of the problem 17. Psychiatric services in the penal system: an overview 18. A model for examining the links between madness (mental disorder) and crime 19. Comments on future research 20. Summary and conclusion

Philip Bean is Emeritus Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Loughborough University, and a former Director of the Midlands Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice.