Working with the Mentally Disordered Offender in the Community

In the past forensic psychiatry has been a sub-speciality of general psychiatry without its own, separate identity. However, since the mid-1980s there has been a growing in­ terest in the application of community care principles to mentally disordered offenders. A new set of attitudes have developed which have enabled the mentally disordered offender to emerge from relative institutional obscurity to a much higher profile in the community. Although numerically small in relation to the general ps