Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Punishment & Society
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Seddon, T.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Dangerous liaisons

Personality disorder and the politics of risk

Toby Seddon

University of Manchester, UK

In July 1999, radical and controversial proposals were put forward by the UK government for a new approach to the management of dangerous individuals with severe personality disorders. The Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) programme involved service development and research but its most contentious part was the proposal for new legislation to provide civil and criminal powers for the detention of DSPD individuals in new specialist high-secure units. The programme has been viewed by many commentators as evidence that concerns about risk have become the over-riding driver of contemporary mental health and penal policy and it has been described as a `psychiatric manifestation of the risk society'. In this article, it is argued that while the DSPD initiative does indeed embody the ascendance of `risk thinking' in recent years, the idea of risk needs to be broadened out and understood as a complex, multi-faceted and mobile formation. Crucially, it needs to be viewed in a more `substantively political light' rather than simply as a technocratic or instrumental development.

Key Words: dangerousness • DSPD • personality disorder • preventive detention • risk

Punishment & Society, Vol. 10, No. 3, 301-317 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1462474508090230
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Br J CriminolHome page
B. Hebenton and T. Seddon
From Dangerousness to Precaution: Managing Sexual and Violent Offenders in an Insecure and Uncertain Age
Br. J. Criminol., May 1, 2009; 49(3): 343 - 362.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]