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Dangerous Mistakes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Nigel Walker
Nigel Walker*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
*
Institute of Criminology, 7 West Road, Cambridge CBS 9DT
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Abstract

The shortening of the periods of detention for treatment, deterrence or retribution have made a live issue of whether (or when) it is justifiable to detain violent and sexual offenders solely for the protection of others. Anti-protectionist arguments have made ‘dangerousness' a dirty word, but are based either on actuarial statistics of doubtful relevance or on confused moral reasoning. A typology of ‘dangerousness' is tentatively offered, and the impossibility of adequately supervising some dangerous offenders in the community is emphasised. That said, offenders detained solely for the sake of others are entitled to more than merely ‘humane containment’.

Type
Lecture
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 158 , Issue 6 , June 1991 , pp. 752 - 757
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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Footnotes

This paper is based on the 1990 Maudsley Lecture.

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