NCJ Number
177720
Editor(s)
N. Eastman,
J. Peay
Date Published
1999
Length
256 pages
Annotation
This book explores issues in the current debate in Great Britain about the role and substance of law that relates to and impacts mental health aims and mentally ill persons.
Abstract
The project that gave rise to this book involved two major stages: the bringing together of 20 academics, practitioners, users of mental health services, and government officials in a 24-hour "think tank" jointly chaired by the editors of this book; and a second meeting that added 40 more participants who were chosen largely for their direct involvement in mental health care and law. The contributors to this book come from the initial group of 20 and the presenters at the second stage. To date the focus of the debate on the role of law in the mental health enterprise has been on the tension between protecting the public from injurious behavior that may stem from mental illness and patients' civil rights. Much of the impetus for the debate has stemmed from "notorious" homicides. The debate pursued in the papers of this book however, is more comprehensive in its consideration of the apparently irreconcilable objectives of mental health and justice. It goes to the heart of the nature of mental disorder and its impacts on legal capacity, juxtaposing constructs that arise out of differing disciplines and exposing the inadequacies of current mental health law. In making proposals for integrating the achievement of mental health and justice, the book acknowledges that the potential contribution of law to mental health is inherently limited. The contributors argue for radical law reform but caution against ill-considered proposals at a time when issues of mental health care and related law are highly charged in the political arena. A 288-item bibliography and a subject index