AN OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH ON THE PREDICTION OF DANGEROUSNESS

Mental health professionals are required to predict ''dangerousness'' of patients in different situations. But it is not always clear what i s ment by the term ''dangerousness''. It can mean simply stating wheth er or not a specific patient is likely to commit a crime in the future or it can mean identifying the situation or situations in which a spe cific patient is more or less likely to commit a crime. Epidemiologica l studies of birth cohorts followed to adulthood indicate that persons with major mental disorders are at increased risk, as compared to non -disordered persons, to commit crimes and crimes of violence. Another group of individuals at high risk to commit crimes are those who meet the the diagnostic criteria for psychopathy. This disorder can now be reliably and validly diagnosed using Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revi sed (PCL-R). Recently, procedures have been developed which allow for relatively accurate predictions of illegal behaviour. These procedures (sometimes referred to as prediction schemes) are specific to differe nt types of persons - the mentally ill, the psychopath, the sex offend er, etc. The predictive accuracy of these procedures depends on the co llection of high quality objective information, both historical and cu rrent.