title: Mental disorder and criminality in Canada.
abstract: This article examines the relationship between mental disorder and criminality in Canada from the colonial period to the landmark 1992 Mental Disorder Amendments that followed the passing of Bill C-30. The history of this relationship has been shaped by longstanding formal and informal systems of social regulation, by the contests of federal-provincial jurisdiction, by changing trends in the legal and psychiatric professions, and by amendments to the federal Criminal Code. A study of these longer-term features demonstrates that there has been no linear path of progress in Canada's response to mentally unwell offenders. Those caught in the web of crime and mental disorder have been cast and recast over the past 150 years by the changing dynamics of criminal law, psychiatry, and politics. A long historical perspective suggests how earlier and more contemporary struggles over mental disorder and criminality are connected, how these struggles are bound by historical circumstance, and how a few relatively progressive historical moments emerging from these struggles might be recovered, and theorized to advantage.
authors.affiliation: Department of History, University of Prince Edward Island, 550 University Avenue, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Electronic address: jmoran@upei.ca.
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Moran
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D003134:Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders / Q000266:history*; D005104:Expert Testimony / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D007298:Insanity Defense / Q000266:history*; D028642:Persons with Psychiatric Disorders / Q000266:history*
keywords: Canada; Criminal code; Criminal law; History; Psychiatry; Reform