This study compares judges’ and psychiatrists’ perspectives on “dangerousness” as the criterion for involuntary civil commitment. Even though the “reasonable expectations” that a person would be dangerous to self, others, or to property were viewed at about the same levels of probability by both judges and psychiatrists, there were important differences between the two professions. Judges and psychiatrists disagreed on the extent of dangerousness inherent in specific acts, and judges appeared to be more willing to commit persons to a mental hospital with greater degrees of uncertainty than were psychiatrists.
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Rita James Simon (1977) studied this question.