Law and Personality Disorder: Human Rights, Human Risks, and Rehabilitation

In 1999, policymakers in England and Wales advanced controversial proposals for the preventive detention of a group they termed ’dangerous people with severe personality disorders’. Against a background of uncertain scientific knowledge, legal and policy actors have long faced challenges in reconciling the need to prevent crime with the need to respect the rights of the ’dangerous’. Ailbhe O’Loughlin’s book, Law and Personality Disorder, situates contemporary debates about ’dangerous’ offenders within this decades-old battle between the proponents of liberal legal principles and advocates of social defence.

Law and Personality Disorder deconstructs competing images of offenders with personality disorders and the dilemmas they present, combining insights from criminology, psychiatry, psychology, and law. The book thus critically engages with an alluring narrative: the state has a duty to protect the public from ’dangerous’ individuals, but it can also protect the human rights of the ’dangerous’ by providing them with rehabilitation opportunities. While human rights law is often invoked as a means of curbing the excesses of preventive justice, O’Loughlin demonstrates that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights tends to legitimise coercive measures. Criminal law, furthermore, enables the punishment of offenders with mental disorders by resisting psychiatric evidence that they may not be fully responsible for their actions.

Examining gaps in sentencing law, mental health law, and human rights law, this innovative book offers readers a comprehensive interpretation of the laws governing offenders with personality disorders and puts forward proposals for reform.

Ailbhe O’Loughlin, Senior Lecturer in Law, York Law School, University of York

Dr Ailbhe O’Loughlin is a Senior Lecturer in Law at York Law School. Ailbhe joined York Law School in 2016. Her research interests focus on the intersection between criminal justice and mental health, and she has published work on sentencing, human rights, mental health law, and punishment. Ailbhe holds a PhD in Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Oxford, and an LLB in Law and French from Trinity College Dublin.