NCJ Number
155310
Editor(s)
N Z Hilton,
M A Jackson,
C D Webster
Date Published
1990
Length
663 pages
Annotation
This collection of articles on forensic psychology and forensic psychiatry encompasses six major theories of criminal behavior: psychiatric, biological, biosocial, learning, cognitive, and psychiatric.
Abstract
Part I presents a variety of contemporary theoretical approaches to mental disorder and criminality. The theories reviewed are psychiatric theories, biological theories, biosocial theory, learning theory, cognitive theory, and psychoanalytic theory. Another area of expertise for the clinical criminologist involves an understanding of various types of offenders and an ability to tailor treatment to each type. In Part II of this book, typologies of offenders can be based on the criminal behavior, such as substance abuse or sexual assault and other forms of violence, or on characteristics of the offenders themselves, such as age, sex, intelligence, or psychopathic tendencies. Each section in Part II provides an example of a specific offender group followed by a treatment intervention directed toward that group. These programs might include basic medical approaches, such as the administration of drugs to the mentally ill. Some specialized units within hospitals and prisons will also offer a range of educational, vocational, social, and therapeutic programs. The expertise of clinical criminologists is required at various stages in the criminal justice system. Often, the courts require psychiatric credentials to be held by their criminological consultants; however, clinical criminologists from various training backgrounds can also contribute to the assessment of accused persons for the issues covered in Part III: competency, insanity, dangerousness, treatability, and malingering. It is in this role that the clinical criminologist must most carefully combine knowledge of acceptable scientific opinion with awareness of legal standards and meanings. References accompany the articles