Surviving psychiatry in an era of 'popular punitiveness'

In an era when sentencing of mentally disordered offenders has been progressively influenced by protective considerations, the role psychiatrists play in the sentencing process is problematic. Where an offender's legitimate expectation of proportionality in sentencing can be trumped by psychiatric assessments, not of therapeutic need, but of either predictions of risk or untreatability or both, leading to disproportionate and potentially damaging custodial sentences, then psychiatrists should recognize that they are ethically compromised.