We invite submissions of abstracts for consideration that include author's affiliation, academic rank, contact information, and brief 100-word biography by email to:

Heidi Rimke, University of Winnipeg, Dept. of Sociology, [email protected]

Daniel Nehring, East China University of Science and Technology, International School of Social Work, [email protected]

Dylan Kerrigan, University of Leicester, School of Criminology, [email protected]

Session Overview:

This call seeks presentations that critically examine how mental health issues and the increasing psychologisation of society have influenced developments in the law, reorganized public policy, and reshaped processes of social governance.

In recent years, academic debates have drawn attention to the growing diffusion of "psy" knowledges into public discourse and practices across a range of non-specialist institutional domains.

Presentations will explore how the growth of "psy" discourses intersects with legal, moral, and ethical matters. We are interested in presentations that examine the ways in which psychocentrism does or does not operate within broader moral, legal, and ethical frameworks focusing on mental health.

For example, psychocentrism has led to the development of therapeutic jurisprudence. Instances of this include procedural justice and mindfulness as a treatment for prisoners in the UK, neither of which has been shown to eradicate the social structural sources of mental health challenges.

In this panel, we address this subject matter through interdisciplinary perspectives from across the social sciences, and beyond. We seek contributions from disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, law, criminology and criminal justice, geography and urban studies, history, philosophy, political science, and psychology that analyze the relationship between the law, mental health, and the constitution of social problems.

Papers in this session will focus on the legal parameters and implications of mental health issues as they relate to social problems of crime and deviance in contemporary society. In particular, we encourage contributions that focus on the Global South, as well as on the transnational dimensions of our subject matter.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

· mental disorder and incapacitation defenses (NCRMD)
· toxic workplaces and occupational health and safety legislation
· legal discourses of mental disease and/or addiction
· the criminal justice system and mental health
· pharmaceutical regulation
· bioethics and biopolitics
· professional ethics and civic morals
· public health and citizen safety
· the regulation of psychotherapeutic agents and cultures
· malpractice and iatrogenesis
· institutional responsibilities and duties
· mental health law and jurisprudence
· informed consent
· human rights and globalization
· research ethics and academic freedom
· biotechnology and mental health
· prisons and the mental health crisis
· human rights legislation and case law
· mental health first aid in workplaces and schools
· self-harm and social harm
· infanticide, suicide, homicide, genocide
· mental health disability rights
· public health law, security and emergency legislation
· cybercrimes, cyberharassment, and cyberstalking
· medicalization/criminalization/pathologization/deviantalization