Abstract
Like it or not Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) have become a part of the psychiatric landscape in the Western world. Many clinicians see them as a necessary tool to ensure people with mental disorder adhere to management and access the care they need. The clinical concern is that without a CTO people will not engage with treatment, and this will lead to myriad problems including difficulties in managing self, increased risk of incarceration in the criminal justice system or death by suicide or homicide. Indeed, many CTO regimes have been enacted in response to pressure following a person with mental disorder killing a member of public, presumably as the belief is a CTO will prevent future events. As homicide rates are immune to implementation of CTOs, with no fall in rates with there enactment it is clear that CTOs do not provide this outcome. A CTO enables enforced care while also providing legal protections to object to this if a person wants to. Despite these protections there are arguments that CTOs breech human rights, run counter to the Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and ignores the bioethical principle of autonomy.