Mental illness and criminal law: irreconcilable bedfellows?

This chapter considers the problems of fitting disordered people, who may have offended in a way affected, if not caused, by their disorder, or who don’t or can’t act in their own best interests, into a system of law designed primarily to cope with the mentally ordered. From a criminal law perspective, it examines insanity and diminished responsibility; and from a psychiatric perspective, issues of uncertainty, complexity and trust. Whilst the chapter adopts the default position of criminal law in England and Wales, and of the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA 1983), it endeavours to avoid too much detail of country-specific law, and rather seeks to discuss issues, principles and irreconcilable inter-disciplinary differences