NCJ Number
99945
Journal
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry Volume: 6 Issue: 3/4 Dated: (1983) Pages: 381-390
Date Published
1983
Length
10 pages
Annotation
Psychiatrists gradually have been accepted as society's experts in predicting dangerousness without ever having empirically demonstrated such expertise.
Abstract
'Dangerousness' has become part of mental health nomenclature although it is not a medical term but a statutory guideline that presumes clinical expertise. Research on clinical judgments of dangerousness has consistently found that the accuracy of clinical judgments rarely exceeds that obtainable simply by chance. However, few current empirical initiatives exist in this field, suggesting that those professions regularly involved in predicting dangerousness are not building the types of feedback loops vital to science. (Scientific enterprise basically amounts to a feedback loop between ideas and empirical observations systematically collected to test the ideas.) This paucity of feedback loops may be because (1) the profession and the public do not want to know the truth in case it is unsettling and (2) psychiatrists lack appreciation for the types of roles embedded in psychiatry. 14 references.