Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention Advance Access originally published online on December 18, 2007
Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 2008 8(1):15-26; doi:10.1093/brief-treatment/mhm028
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Management of the Mentally Abnormal Offender
From the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University of Hamilton, Ontario (Chaimowitz, Mamak, Padgett) and St Joseph's Healthcare, Hamilton, Centre for Mountain Health Services, Hamilton, Ontario (Chaimowitz)
Contact author: Gary A. Chaimowitz, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Head of Service, Forensic Services and St Joseph's Healthcare, Centre for Mountain Health Services, 100 West 5th Street, Box 585, Hamilton, Ontario L8N 3K7, Canada. E-mail: chaimow{at}mcmaster.ca.
Discussions about the prediction of dangerousness, a legal or social construct, often extend beyond forensic psychiatry into the general practice of psychiatry. Dangerousness can drive the entrance to and exit from the mental health and forensic system. Better conceptualized as risk prediction, it has been seen as a core skill for forensic psychiatry and an increasing requirement for general psychiatrists. Yet, for all the expertise in and the usefulness of risk prediction, it is the daily management of the mentally abnormal offender that taxes the clinical skills of the forensic psychiatrist. This article will address what we know about this area and suggest a model for managing mentally abnormal offenders.
KEY WORDS: risk prediction, risk management, dangerousness, offenders