Locking up the Sociopaths

Posted on March 23, 2006 in Hospitals and Prisons Liberty Personality Disorders

There’s a good question being raised by the debate over changing the mental illness laws in England: should personality disorder sufferers (e.g. sociopaths) be subject to forcible detention? The current law says that if you have a mental syndrome which cannot be treated, you can’t be locked up. So a sociopath who poses a danger to self or others may be released because he doesn’t have an organic brain dysfunction like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

Is this thought policing? Can we have a law like this and not give up freedom? Is a greater good served by identifying and restricting sociopaths? (And why only violent ones? Would the impact on the economy be too great when we lose our salesmen?)