Dangerous liaisons: Personality disorder and the politics of risk

In July 1999, radical and controversial proposals were put forward by the UK government for a new approach to the management of dangerous individuals with severe personality disorders. The Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) programme involved service development and research but its most contentious part was the proposal for new legislation to provide civil and criminal powers for the detention of DSPD individuals in new specialist high-secure units. The programme has been viewed by many commentators as evidence that concerns about risk have become the over-riding driver of contemporary mental health and penal policy and it has been described as a 'psychiatric manifestation of the risk society'. In this article, it is argued that while the DSPD initiative does indeed embody the ascendance of 'risk thinking' in recent years, the idea of risk needs to be broadened out and understood as a complex, multi-faceted and mobile formation. Crucially, it needs to be viewed in a more 'substantively political light' rather than simply as a technocratic or instrumental development. © 2008 Sage Publications.