It would be absurd to suggest that mental health legislation is never abused, that individuals are never detained unnecessarily on inappropriate psychiatric grounds, or that political expediency does not sometimes exert an influence on decision making in this regard. Dr Szasz, however, takes an extreme view in rejecting the moral or legal right of psychiatrists to participate in the compulsory hospital admission of offenders. He rightly points out that if psychiatric involvement is wrong in principle, then “periodic outbursts of indignation against ‘abuses'” are “both naive and foolish”. Nevertheless, he sees fit to support his arguments with examples of what he deems abuses.