Citation

Monahan J, Cummings L. J. Soc. Iss. 1975; 31(2): 153-164.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1975, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1540-4560.1975.tb00766.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Much current social policy in the areas of mental health and criminal justice is based on the supposition that psychologists and psychiatrists can accurately predict those who will be physically violent to another. A review of the empirical literature, however, reveals that violence is vastly overpredicted, regardless of who is doing the predicting or how the predictions are made. This predictive inaccuracy has several immediate social policy implications: Indeterminate prison sentencing should be abolished, civil commitment and preventive detention should be substantially curtailed, and legal safeguards should be infused into early intervention programs.

Language: en