Abstract
A great deal of work in mental health law has been addressed to improving the assessment of violence risk among people with mental disorder (Borum, 1996; Monahan et al., in press; Steadman et al., in press). It is clear, however, as a number of researchers have recently emphasized, that risk assessment is only the first step in dealing with violence by people with mental disorder and must be followed by effective risk reduction (Carson, 1994; Heilbrun, 1997). The clinical and empirical literatures on risk reduction have been reviewed in a number of important sources (Eichelman & Hartwig, 1995; McNiel, 1998; Quinsey, Harris, Rice, & Cormier, 1998; Rice & Harris, 1997; Roth, 1987; Wettstein, 1998). A fair summary of that literature is that mental health professionals (particularly when assisted by actuarial instruments) appear to be better at estimating an individual’s level of violence risk than lowering that estimated level of violence risk.
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Monahan, J., Appelbaum, P.S. (2000). Reducing Violence Risk. In: Hodgins, S. (eds) Violence among the Mentally III. NATO Science Series, vol 90. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4130-7_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4130-7_2
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