title: Emergent authority and expert knowledge: psychiatry and criminal responsibility in the UK.
abstract: In the UK context, the rise of the discipline and practice of forensic psychiatry is intimately connected with the concurrent development of principles and practices relating to criminal responsibility. In this article, we seek to chart the relationship between psychiatry and the principles and practices of criminal responsibility in the UK over the early modern, modern and late modern periods. With a focus on claims about authority and expert knowledge around criminal responsibility, we suggest that these claims have been in a state of perpetual negotiation and that, as a result, claims to authority over and knowledge about criminal non-responsibility on the part of psychiatrists and psychiatry are most accurately understood as emergent and contingent. The apparent formalism of legal discourse has tended to conceal the extent to which legal policy has been preoccupied with maintaining the primacy of lay judgments in criminal processes of evaluation and adjudication. While this policy has been somewhat successful in the context of the trial - particularly the murder trial - it has been undermined by administrative procedures surrounding the trial, including those that substitute treatment for punishment without, or in spite of, a formal determination of criminal responsibility.
authors.affiliation: The University of Sydney, Rm. 512, New Law Building F10, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Electronic address: Arlie.Loughnan@sydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Arlie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Loughnan
authors.affiliation: Law School, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK. Electronic address: A.Ward@hull.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Tony
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ward
mesh_terms: D005104:Expert Testimony / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry / Q000266:history*; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D007298:Insanity Defense / Q000266:history*; D028642:Persons with Psychiatric Disorders / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom
keywords: Criminal responsibility; Expert knowledge; M'Naghten Rules; ‘Manifest madness’