Assessments in Forensic Practice

Kevin D. Browne is Professor of Forensic Psychology and Child Health at the University of Nottingham.Leam A. Craig is Director of Forensic Programmes at Forensic Psychology Practice Ltd, and an Honorary Lecturer in Forensic Psychology at the University of Birmingham.Anthony R. Beech, D.Phil, FBPsS, C.Psychol (Forensic) is Professor of Criminological Psychology,University of Birmingham.

• About the Editors viiContributors ix1. Introduction 1Kevin D. Browne, Anthony R. Beech, Leam A. Craig and Shihning ChouPart One Criminal Justice Assessments 52. Case Formulation and Risk Assessment 7Peter Sturmey and William R. Lindsay3. Assessment of Violence and Homicide 28Kerry Sheldon and Kevin Howells4. Sexual Offenders 52Franca Cortoni, Anthony R. Beech and Leam A. Craig5. The Assessment of Firesetters 76Lynsey F. Gozna6. Forensic Psychological Risk Assessment for the Parole Board 103Louise Bowers and Caroline Friendship7. Behavioral Assessment in Investigative Psychology 122Eleanor M. Gittens and Kate WhitfieldPart Two Offenders with Mental Disorders 1378. Assessing Risk of Violence in Offenders with Mental Disorders 139James McGuire9. Assessing Mental Capacity and Fitness to Plead in Offenders with Intellectual Disabilities: Implications for Practice 172Leam A. Craig, Ian Stringer and Roger B. Hutchinson10. Offenders with ‘Personality Disorder’ Diagnoses 198Lawrence Jones and Phil Willmot11. Offenders and Substance Abuse 217Simon DuffPart Three Family Violence 23312. Community Approaches to the Assessment and Prevention of Intimate Partner Violence and Child Maltreatment 235Kevin D. Browne, Shihning Chou and Vicki Jackson-Hollis13. Psychological Assessment of Parenting in Family Proceedings 265Karen Bailey, Eugene Ostapiuk and Taljinder Basra14. Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence 295Louise DixonPart Four Policy and Practice 31715. Assessment of Hostage Situations and Their Perpetrators:In the Context of Domestic Violence 319Carol A. Ireland16. Assessing the Sexually Abused Child as a Witness 333Kevin D. Browne17. Working with Young Offenders 354Clive R. Hollin and Ruth M. Hatcher18. The Ethics of Risk Assessment 370James Vess, Tony Ward and Pamela M. YatesIndex 387

Assessment in Forensic Practice: A Handbook is an interesting compilation of theme-based chapters by British psychologists. It is a wonderful primer on doing criminal assessments and provides an in-depth review of many standard assessment tools, such as the Historical Clinical Risk Management-20 (HCR-20) and the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG). It also includes informative chapters concerning specific conditions, such as pyromania. The book is very good at covering large concepts that are often discussed in the psychiatric and psychological literature on criminal forensic assessment. Over the course of the book, many important areas are discussed, such as ethical concerns when doing forensic assessments, how to present opinions related to forensic assessment, and some of the inherent problems in forensic assessment, such as unknown base rates for malingering and difficulty with predicting the future.Journal of Psychiatric Practice