Disordered Personalities and Crime

Disordered Personalities and Crime seeks to better understand how we respond to those individuals who have been labelled at various points in time as 'morally insane', 'psychopathic' or 'personality disordered'. Individuals whose behaviour is consistent with these diagnoses present challenges to both the CJS and mental health systems in that the people who come to have such diagnoses seem to have a rational and realistic understanding of the world around them, but they can behave in ways that suggests that they have either little understanding of the meaning or consequences of their actions. Divided into three parts - 'Moral Insanity', 'Psychopathy' and 'Personality Disorders' - each dealing with an identifiable historical phase of thinking about the difficulties posed by individuals exhibiting these kinds of problems, this book argues that an analysis of the history of the diagnoses of personality disorder will help to provide a better understanding of these contemporary difficulties. This book will be key reading for students, researchers and academics who are interested in serious crime and its relationship to mental disorder and also to those interested in psychiatry and abnormal psychology.