Psychiatric experts function as advisers on punishment, not on responsibility

Evidence

What, then, is the role of the psychiatrist in penal matters? He is not an expert in responsibility, but an adviser on punishment; it is up to him to say whether the subject is ‘dangerous’, in what way one should be protected from him, how one should intervene to alter him, whether it would be better to try to force him into submission or to treat him. At the very beginning of its history, psychiatric expertise was called upon to formulate ‘true’ propositions as to the part that the liberty of the offender had played in the act he had committed; it is now called upon to suggest a prescription for what might be called his ‘medico-judicial treatment’. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 60

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the expert’s actual function: prescribing treatment rather than establishing responsibility.
• XREF: connects to: Psychiatric investigation produces plausible stories, not verifiable truth — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 497

Broader Connections

• Psychiatric investigation produces plausible stories, not verifiable truth #corroborates (0.85) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 497