Introduction
Dangerousness, is the concept of criminology that is used
to attribute those offenders who are deemed to pose a significant
risk to the general public but whose actions cannot be made
attributable to a specific mental illness. This therefore
means that the administration of their criminal punishment
is, by law, to be dealt with by the penal system as opposed
to the medical profession. This paper analyses this concept
of dangerousness, which will predominantly take into consideration
the difficulties of creating an adequate legal definition
for the use of the "dangerousness" concept as a tool within
the modern criminal justice system. In particular, critical
assessment of a possible use for a dangerousness concept will
be analysed with reference to difficulties of categorisation
of dangerous behaviour and possible usefulness. Once a use
for dangerousness has been identified, this will be analysed
with reference to possible impacts on the modern Human Rights
regime. These findings will be cross referenced with the work
of the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA)
and the Multi-Agency Public Protection Panel (MAPPP) in order
to determine whether there really is a use for an all encompassing
'dangerousness' concept in Criminal Justice. 
Definition of the Concept of Dangerousness
Research into the dangerousness concept reveals that it is
a character that is attributed to certain criminal offenders.
Floud and Young therefore describe dangerousness as:
"a pathological attribute of character: a propensity to inflict
harm on others in disregard or defiance of the usual social
and legal constraints. "
The first revelation of the concept of 'dangerousness' is,
therefore, that it is a notion aimed at the criminal offender.
A second aspect of the concept is that the offender need not
be suffering from any form of mental illness. This does not
pose huge problems for the criminal justice function of sentencing,
since mental illness is indicative of insanity, which when
averred in a court of law, has the effect of acquitting the
offender on account of lack of mens rea to commit the crime
. The insane are therefore dealt with by the medical profession
on a strictly subjective level in a way that the penal system
would be ill equipped to provide. This was evident in the
case of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, who, after
a period of time in prison due to a failed plea of diminished
responsibility , was eventually found to be mentally unsound
and was placed into psychiatric care.
Finally, a third aspect, or perhaps a problem associated with
the above definition is that there is little guidance on the
classification of behaviour that can be deemed as dangerous.
This will be dealt with below. In relation to this, there
is no assistance in the determination of the boundaries between
dangerous and non-dangerous offenders.
Dangerousness as a useful tool for the criminal justice
system
1. Definition of Criminal Justice
In order to assess a potential tool for the Criminal Justice
system, it is essential to know exactly what Criminal Justice
is in order to identify its specific requirements for potential,
useful tools.
Criminal Justice is highly complex for the simple reason that
it is a system operated by various institutions including
the police, the crown prosecution service, the criminal defence
service, the courts, the probation service and the prison
service to name but a few. Sanders and Young have however
identified one key principle of all institutions that are
instrumental in the Criminal Justice system, which is to regulate:
"potential, alleged and actual criminal activity within procedural
limits supposed to protect the citizen from wrongful treatment
and wrongful conviction. "
Requirements for dangerousness to be a useful tool
Dangerousness, as a tool within this system, therefore requires
to be instrumental in the regulation of alleged and actual
criminal activity. Dangerousness itself would fit into the
criminal justice modal as a legal term for the attribution
of certain offenders but, in doing so, it must have a functional
use beyond mere classification. As a tool within a fair legal
system that is governed by the Human Rights Act 1998 , it
is also necessary that the definition of dangerousness is
clear and precise so that offenders are given the benefit
of full transparency of the law.
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