Mad, Bad and Dangerous: Psychiatry and Criminals in the Popular Press

The categories of sickness, madness and badness are in constant flux because they are evaluative, socially constructed categories with imprecise boundaries. This poses problems for those who have jurisdiction over these boundaries, and those who seek to undermine their established authority. This is not just an academic point. For instance, a British schizophrenic named Peter Coonan changed his name after tabloid reporting of his case became intolerable. Coonan is a convicted murderer held in Broadmoor high security hospital. Even after noting this morbid fact I suggest that it is possible to find some degree of sympathy for Coonan’s plight because psychiatrists who gave evidence at his trial confirmed to the court that his criminality occurred as a direct consequence of his paranoid schizophrenic condition: voices told him to kill.