A bin is a bin by any other name

doi:10.1136/bmj.b1311

Published 31 March 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1311
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1311

Letters

Acting on behalf of mentally disordered offenders

A bin is a bin by any other name

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

With regard to the article by Sales and McKenzie,¹ the realquestions are as follows. Is it morally right to incarceratein prison people who are seen as mentally ill? If not, can theoverstretched and inadequate mental health system cope withtreating them and at the same time maintain the public’ssafety? As Peter O’Loughlin argues in the online discussion,²is it morally right to use mental illness as a reason to excusecriminal activity and circumvent the normal judicial process?Stein and Test are seemingly the only clinicians to have addressedthis question in any substantive way over recent decades.³ Finally,is it right continually to support the burgeoning independentsector who, seeing Nero watching Rome burn, is pilfering thetreasure? As Holloway points out,⁴ we have totally deconstructedthe backbone of psychiatric practice rehabilitation services,which are largely non-existent in most areas—a factorleading to increased referral . . . [Full text of this article]