NCJ Number
173845
Editor(s)
N Walker
Date Published
1996
Length
202 pages
Annotation
This volume contains nine essays on dangerous people and suggestions concerning what society has done, can do, or should do about them.
Abstract
The book examines how the courts, parole boards, probation services, and mental health organizations deal with violent or sexual offenders regarded as "dangerous." It presents information and discussion in the following chapters: (1) Ethical and Other Problems; (2) Violence and Mental Disorder; (3) When Violence is the Norm; (4) Sexual Molesters; (5) Bailing and Sentencing the Dangerous; (6) Psychiatric Inpatient Violence; (7) The Management and Discharge of Violent Patients; (8) Parole and the Dangerous Offender; and (9) Supervising the Dangerous in the Community. These essays suggest that a sentencing system should be designed that will respond to the public's demand for secure protection against offenders who have shown themselves capable of doing serious personal harm to others; refine predictive research variables to lessen false positives and false negatives in both clinical and actuarial predictions about individuals' future harmfulness or harmlessness; address the fact that the community does not and cannot be expected to provide much protection for the public; and consider the judiciary's reluctance to use such powers as it has to impose indeterminate detention when there is no psychiatric diagnosis of disorder or instability. Notes, references, appendixes, tables, index