This paper analyzes some socio-cultural dimensions of the semantic field and ways of structuring forensic psychiatry discourses in relation to the criminal dangerousness and its connections with mental health. From the results of a research based on content analysis of several handbooks and books in forensic psychiatry, it was possible to examine some meanings and forms of enunciation about the concept of criminal dangerousness as well as the main interpretive strategies that organize the etiological models of criminality prevailing in this area.
Criminal dangerousness; forensic psychiatry; mental health