Violence Risk Assessment in American Law

Abstract

(from the chapter) In this chapter, I address two topics relevant to the use of violence risk assessment in American law. First, I review the state of the science of violence risk assessment, concentrating on recent moves in the United States toward augmenting clinical prediction with statistical approaches to assessment. Second, I review the current state of American law on the admissibility of clinical and statistical risk assessments of violence as evidence in court proceedings. Topics discussed included: the validity of clinical risk assessments, the move toward actuarial risk assessment, The Violence Risk Appraisal Guide, The HCR-20, The Iterative Classification Tree, Constitutional issues, and evidentiary issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)