Modern society is increasingly preoccupied with fears for the future and the idea of preventing 'the worst'. The result is a focus on attempting to calculate the probabilities of adverse events occurring - in other words, on measuring risk. Since the 1990s, the idea of risk has come to dominate policy and practice in mental health across the USA, Australasia and Europe.

In this timely new text, a group of international experts examines the ways in which the narrow focus on specific kinds of risk, such as violence towards others, perpetuates the social disadvantages experienced by mental...