Chapter 9 Essay questions

  1. Offenders with mental disabilities are categorically awkward; being neither exclusively ill nor uncomplicatedly bad, such offenders ‘totter between two not always compatible discourses of state intervention’ (Webb and Harris 1999: 2). Discuss.
  2. What relationship, if any, is there between mental disorder and crime? What might mental disorder add to the factors that can lead to criminal behaviour?
  3. Does the law discriminate against offenders with mental disabilities and if so, in what ways? What explanations are there for this?
  4. Why do so many offenders with mental disabilities end up in prison despite policies aimed at diverting such offenders, wherever possible, away from such regimes?
  5. In what ways can the experience of the criminal justice system exacerbate mental ill-health or existing vulnerabilities? How should the law respond to this problem?
  6. What dilemmas are posed by the rehabilitation of offenders with mental disabilities within the prison and probation systems?
  7. Why have offenders with severe personality disorders proved so problematic for the criminal justice system to manage? What problems does this group pose for the mental health system?
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