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The evolution of violence risk assessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

John Monahan  and
Jennifer L. Skeem
John Monahan*
Affiliation:
School of Law, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Jennifer L. Skeem
Affiliation:
School of Social Welfare & Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California–Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: John Monahan, School of Law, University of Virginia, 580 Massie Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903-1738, USA. (Email: jmonahan@virginia.edu)
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Abstract

Many instruments have been published in recent years to improve the ability of mental health clinicians to estimate the likelihood that an individual will behave violently toward others. Increasingly, these instruments are being applied in response to laws that require specialized risk assessments. In this review, we present a framework that goes beyond the “clinical” and “actuarial” dichotomy to describe a continuum of structured approaches to risk assessment. Despite differences among them, there is little evidence that one instrument predicts violence better than another. We believe that these group-based instruments are useful for assessing an individual's risk, and that the instrument should be chosen based on the purpose of the assessment.

Keywords

Risk assessmentviolencedangerousness
Type
Review Articles
Information
CNS Spectrums , Volume 19 , Issue 5 , October 2014 , pp. 419 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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