Synopses & Reviews
Now in an updated and expanded second edition, this volume offers comprehensive guidance and background material on decision-making in cases where future violence is a potential issue. It outlines best practice in conducting violence assessments of individuals in varied contexts, including civil psychiatric hospitals, forensic mental health services and the criminal justice system. The authors detail the operation of criminal and mental health codes internationally, with a particular focus on Canada and England, and synthesize commonly agreed principles appropriate for use in assessing a client’s propensity for committing violence.
This new edition reflects a general change in violence risk assessment and management, with structured professional judgement now a well established approach, and engages with the growing attention paid to the role of protective factors when evaluating and managing violence risks. It demonstrates today’s closer integration of risk assessment and treatment, covered in discrete chapters on planning and formulation.
Review
This is an excellent account of risk assessment for mental health professionals. It should find a place on every practitioner’s book shelf and every undergraduate reading list.
—
Professor Harry Kennedy, Trinity College Dublin
Webster and colleagues have produced an exceptionally useful book, situating leading contemporary models of violence risk assessment and management within decision making contexts. They provide substantial pragmatic guidance on how to make tough decisions about violence risk at various transition points within forensic and correctional settings, and how to implement and evaluate risk assessment models within systems. This book will be illuminating for all key stakeholders – administrators; policy-makers; practitioners; and researchers.
—Professor Kevin Douglas, Simon Fraser University
Synopsis
This expanded and updated new edition reflects the growing importance of the structured professional judgement approach to violence risk assessment and management. It offers comprehensive guidance on decision-making in cases where future violence is a potential issue.
- Includes discussion of interventions based on newly developed instruments
- Covers policy standards developed since the publication of the first edition
- Interdisciplinary perspective facilitates collaboration between professionals
- Includes contributions from P.Randolf Kropp, R. Karl Hanson, Mary-Lou Martin, Alec Buchanan and John Monahan
About the Author
Christopher D. Webster is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Canada, as well as Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Simon Fraser University. A Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association, the American Psychological Association and the Royal Society of Canada, his publications include the first edition of this volume (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), and
Essential Writings in Risk Assessment and Management (2007), which he co-edited.
Quazi Haque is Executive Medical Director for Partnerships in Care, one of the largest providers of mental health services in the UK. A Fellow of the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists and former lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry’s Home Office Teaching Unit, he collaborated with Christopher Webster in developing a structured professional judgement training programme at the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London.
Stephen J. Hucker is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Canada. A specialist in forensic psychiatry, he is a former head of the forensic programs at Toronto’s Clarke Institute of Psychiatry and has lectured widely on forensic psychiatry both to scientific and professional audiences. He maintains a private practice and is frequently called as an expert witness in legal cases.
Table of Contents
Tribute
Dr. F.A.S. Jenson vi
List of Figures vii
List of Tables viii
List of Boxes ix
About the Authors x
Foreword Alec Buchanan xii
Preface to the Second Edition xviii
Acknowledgements xxi
1 Decision Points 1
2 Points of View 8
3 Predictions and Errors 15
4 Developmental Trajectories 26
5 Symptomologies 33
6 Personality Disorders 47
7 Substance Abuse 55
8 Factors: Risk and Protective, Single, Multiple, and Interacting 61
9 SPJ Guides 72
10 Competitions 88
11 Planning 92
12 Transitions Mary-Lou Martin 98
13 Sequential Redirections 106
14 Implementations 116
15 Teaching and Researching SPJ Guides 123
16 Spousal Assaulters: Risk Assessment and Management P. Randall Kropp 138
17 Sex Offenders R. Karl Hanson 148
18 Teams 159
19 Communications 163
20 Getting it Wrong, Getting it Right (Mostly) 170
Questions 187
Afterword John Monahan, PhD 195
References 200
Index 224