We live in an era in which debates on the need for mental health reform are over-focused on single issues (like how to ‘get people who live in the community to keep taking their medication’) or, even worse, single cases (how to prevent another tragedy like the killing by Jason Mitchell). This prevents rational policy-making. Unusual cases make bad law. Narrow proposals for risk reduction ignore many of the most pertinent risks: that service users will be victims of attack, but have no access to justice because they are not seen as ‘credible witnesses’; or that they will be detained for fear of violence when in fact they would not have been violent (Sayce, 1995). The recent statement on prime time British TV by Dr Deahl that he would rather detain nine people unnecessarily than discharge one who went on to harm a member of the public, shows how ‘single issue’ risk analysis can lead straight to breaches of natural justice (‘Panorama’, 13 October 1997, British Broadcasting Corporation).