Criminology Essays

Criminology Essays: Dangerousness And Dangerous Offenders

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.

Criminology Essays

• How Society Responds To Certain Crimes
• Cross-National Imprisonment
• The 'Dark Figure' Of Crime
• Dangerousness And Dangerous Offenders
• Criminological Theory Cannot Adequately Account For Hate Crimes
• Criminal Underclass In Nineteenth Century Britain

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