This chapter examines the powers of criminal courts to make a mental health-based disposal rather than relying on the options available within the criminal justice and penal system when faced with a mentally disordered person accused or convicted of a crime. It considers the practical shape of diversion policy, in terms of a series of decisions made by criminal courts, at the various stages of the criminal process, as to whether an accused or convicted person should remain within the criminal justice system or instead be diverted into the mental health system.
Chapter
This chapter examines the role of the police, both as agents of the criminal justice system and as agents of the mental health system. It discusses the policy of diversion; police encounters with mentally disordered persons; the diversion of mentally disordered criminal suspects into an investigative regime with greater safeguards than are ordinarily implemented; and the meaning of ‘absent without leave’.
Chapter
This chapter examines treatment for mental disorder, and in particular treatment without consent. The discussions cover treatment outside the scope of the Mental Health Act 1983; statutory provisions for compulsory treatment of detained patients for mental disorder; involuntary treatment of detained patients for mental disorder; and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
