Psychiatry and the Law

Psychiatry and the Law is the first major new work on the high-profile area of forensic psychiatry and law in Australia and New Zealand in over a decade. In this time the medico/legal landscape has altered dramatically with far-reaching changes in legislation and case law, and in the procedures for regulating the behaviours of mentally impaired offenders, including:

• Fitness to plead
• Insanity
• Sentencing
• Disposition
• Services for mentally adnormal offenders.

This book also discusses the evolving models of clinical management and risk assessment; and the changing professional perceptions of the relationship between mental disorder and violence.

Psychiatry and the Law is edited by University of Auckland Law Professor, Warren Brookbanks and Dr Sandy Simpson, Auckland University Honorary Clinical Associate Professor of Forensic Psychiatry and Director of Auckland's Mason clinic. They lead a team of highly- acclaimed and knowledgeable authors drawn from academic and the practising professions.

Written for use by lawyers, clinicians and students of forensic psychiatry and law, this book canvasses this sometimes highly-controversial area of legal and clinical practice in a thoroughly practical manner, informed by an interdisciplinary perspective.