Law Without Enforcement : Integrating Mental Health and Justice
Author(s): Nigel Eastman, Jill Peay
Law relating to mental disorder and to the mentally disordered has rarely been the subject of such extensive and heated debate. This book explores and reflects upon that debate. To date the focus has been on the tension between public protection and individual civil rights,since much of its impetus has derived from 'notorious' homicides in the community and been directed towards calls for a 'community treatment order'. The debate encapsulated here is more comprehensive, going to the heart of the nature of mental illness and its impacts on legal capacity, juxtaposing constructs which arise out of profoundly differing disciplines. The book concludes that the contribution of current mental health legislation is both marginal and marginalised and it seeks to set an agenda for radical law reform by recognising that asking questions may, at this stage, be more valuable than providing hasty answers. Many of the chapters deal with the recent Bournewood decision in the House of Lords.
Review(s):
“…a must for anyone working in mental health care.The book is a detailed examination of the issues which the current review of mental health legislation ought to address.the contributors put together a convincing argument for new legislation that would root out the contradictions and conflicts and halt the damaging conflation between mental illness and violence towards others.” —Mental Health Care
“The book is brimming over with reflections, ideas and proposals, some (inevitably) easier to follow than othersit is the combined efforts of all the contributors that makes this book so worthy of priority reading.” —Journal of Mental Health Law
“For those interested in mental health law this book is manna from heaven.” —Howard Journal of Criminal Justice
“I recommend that Government ministers read it and reconsider.” —OpenMind
“..The overall impression formed by this book, for someone who has tried to keep up to date with developing ideas, is of a dam busting.It produces a series of insights which are thought-provoking at worst and revelatory at best.Those who wish to understand better the intellectual background from which the scooping committee is working should read this book.” —Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law
ISBN: 9781901362756