Abstract

The past decade has witnessed significant advances in the assessment of the risk of violent behavior toward others. Some of the most noteworthy advances include increased research on shorter-term outcomes, a multisite study funded by the MacArthur Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health using an expanded range of predictor variables and more carefully defined and sensitive outcome measures of violence and aggression, and the development of tools to help clinicians focus on relevant risk factors for violence. Others are the increased use of meta-analysis to assess risk factors for crime and violence, the focus on developing actuarially based tools validated to measure level of risk for future violence and offending, and increased attention to interventions that reduce risk. The authors of Violent Offenders: Appraising and Managing Risk have actively contributed to these advances in risk assessment. Indeed, this book describes a research program that began 25 years ago, centered at the maximum-security division of the Mental Health Centre in Penetanguishene, Ontario. After discussing the historical and methodological contexts of the research, the authors describe their work in violence risk appraisal with three populations: mentally disordered offenders, fire setters, and sexual offenders. They appropriately assume that risk