Security devices, psychiatry and crime prevention: the TOD and the notion of a dangerous child

Abstract

The article analyzes the growing tendency to multiply psychiatric diagnoses in childhood, which finds legitimacy in the argument that, if childhood psychiatric disorders are not properly treated, it will be highly probable that in adult life there will be serious irreversible psychiatric problems, problems associated with crime and delinquency. The example of oppositional and defiant disorder, known as TOD, is analyzed insofar as, according to DSM-5, this pathology supposes a high risk for the development of antisocial personality disorder, a condition that presents clearly juridical connotations and criminological. These diagnoses are analyzed in a critical perspective from the Foucauldian concept of “safety device”.