The government want to lock people up who have not committed any crime, and who are not suffering from a treatable mental illness. In other words people deemed to have a psychopathic personality disorder, on the basis that they might (in the opinion of so called experts) be a danger to the public, or to themselves. The legislation has been defeated in the House of Lords, and now goes back to the Commons.
This is just one more government attack on civil liberties. Quite apart from the impossibility of accurately predicting the future conduct of people with psychopathic personalities, the number of preventable murders committed by this group, although high profile, are relatively small.
Doctors and psychiatrists therefore become jailers for people they can't treat!
If the government's objective in this was purely to save lives, there are other areas in which they could legislate that would save more lives without infringing our civil liberties.
Their true objective is to appear tough on crime, because they think it a vote winner, and their concern for the victims in our society, and their compassion, is highly selective.
20th February 2007
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