Preventive justice, risk of harm and mental health laws

Abstract

Like medicine, law is replete with axioms of prevention. ‘Prevention is better than cure’ has a long pedigree in both fields. Seventeenth-century jurist Sir Edward Coke observed that ‘preventing justice excelleth punishing justice’. A century later, Sir William Blackstone similarly stated that ‘preventive justice is . . . preferable in all respects to punishing justice’. This book evaluates the feasibility and legitimacy of state attempts to regulate prevention. Although prevention may be desirable as a matter of policy, questions are inevitably raised as to its limits and legitimacy – specifically, how society reconciles the desirability of averting risks of future harm with respect for the..