Violence and Mental Disorder

Howard M. Kravitz

This comprehensive review of research on violence and mental illness from the past two decades presents new empirical and theoretical work that may lead to more accurate predictions of violent behavior. The purpose is to review progress in violence risk assessment and risk management. In fulfilling this worthy objective, the recent development of methodologically sound and theoretically coherent indicators of risk for violent behavior and reasons for the previous dearth of progress in risk assessment for violence are addressed. This book was written for clinical and research psychiatrists and psychologists, lawyers, judges, and mental health administrators. However, mental health professionals involved in forensic practices and legal professionals and policymakers who devote time to mental health law are more likely to appreciate its theoretical and research approach. The text and much of the research were supported by the Research Network on Mental Health and the Law of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The authors are experts in this field and represent the foremost group of researchers investigating this highly visible psychosocial and criminal justice problem. This is a very well edited and integrated multiauthored text. Four domains of risk factors are covered in three parts: (1) dispositional factors, including the development of instruments for assessing personality styles; (2) clinical factors, examining psychopathological symptoms; and (3) historical and contextual factors, including demographic, social, and environmental aspects of violence. Notably absent is coverage of biological and genetic factors. The last chapter summarizes the integration of thesefactors in a review of the MacArthur Risk Assessment Study. Tables and figures elucidate the narrative data presentation. The references are current through 1993 in most chapters and include relevant historical references. This reasonably priced presentation of theory and recent research on the risk for violent behavior among the mentally disordered should be part of the library of anyone involved in forensic aspects of mental illness. It is not a clinical text; readers will not learn how to assess or better predict dangerousness, but they will learn about efforts to improve the assessment of this behavior. Bookstores should have copies available, as should medical and law libraries. Although overlapping some with Hodgins' Crime and Mental Disorder (1993), it is sufficiently different to make them complementary texts.

Booknews

Begins the task of identifying risk markers, or prediction variables that can be used to predict more accurately whether a person with a mental disorder will be violent. The factors are presented in four domains: dispositional, clinical, historical, and contextual. Of interest to research psychiatrists and psychologists, lawyers, judges, and policy makers. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

From The Critics

Reviewer: Howard M. Kravitz, DO, MPH(Rush University Medical Center)
Description: This comprehensive review of research on violence and mental illness from the past two decades presents new empirical and theoretical work that may lead to more accurate predictions of violent behavior.
Purpose: The purpose is to review progress in violence risk assessment and risk management. In fulfilling this worthy objective, the recent development of methodologically sound and theoretically coherent indicators of risk for violent behavior and reasons for the previous dearth of progress in risk assessment for violence are addressed.
Audience: This book was written for clinical and research psychiatrists and psychologists, lawyers, judges, and mental health administrators. However, mental health professionals involved in forensic practices and legal professionals and policymakers who devote time to mental health law are more likely to appreciate its theoretical and research approach. The text and much of the research were supported by the Research Network on Mental Health and the Law of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The authors are experts in this field and represent the foremost group of researchers investigating this highly visible psychosocial and criminal justice problem.
Features: This is a very well edited and integrated multiauthored text. Four domains of risk factors are covered in three parts: (1) dispositional factors, including the development of instruments for assessing personality styles; (2) clinical factors, examining psychopathological symptoms; and (3) historical and contextual factors, including demographic, social, and environmental aspects of violence. Notably absent is coverage of biological and genetic factors. The last chapter summarizes the integration of these factors in a review of the MacArthur Risk Assessment Study. Tables and figures elucidate the narrative data presentation. The references are current through 1993 in most chapters and include relevant historical references.
Assessment: This reasonably priced presentation of theory and recent research on the risk for violent behavior among the mentally disordered should be part of the library of anyone involved in forensic aspects of mental illness. It is not a clinical text; readers will not learn how to assess or better predict dangerousness, but they will learn about efforts to improve the assessment of this behavior. Bookstores should have copies available, as should medical and law libraries. Although overlapping some with Hodgins' Crime and Mental Disorder (1993), it is sufficiently different to make them complementary texts.

5 Stars! from Doody