Violence Risk Assessment and ManagementBy C. D. WEBSTER and S. J. HUCKER

Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd (2007), p. 224, ISBN 978-0-470-02750-9, £23.99 (paperback)

If you want an up-to-date review of the violence risk assessment fi eld by two of its most notable contributors, this is the book for you. Chris Webster, a distinguished Canadian psychologist, has been essential to the development of the structured professional judge-ment approach to clinical risk assessment whereby practitioners are supported in their evaluation and decision making around risk by guidelines such as the HCR-20 (Webster et al., 1997). Steve Hucker, another distinguished Canadian and a psychiatrist by trade, has contributed signifi cantly during his long career to the violence and sexual violence fi elds and also to the organisation and management of forensic mental health services. With such credentials, the range of their collaborative efforts was bound to be both broad and considered, and it is.

The book covers a range of essential topics in violence risk assessment and manage-ment: legal perspectives, philosophies of practice, guides to risk assessment, interventions, communication issues, and so on. There are special chapters on violence in different populations, those with mental disorders and those with personality disorders and psy-chopathy, and there are very welcome contributions from other notables in the risk fi eld, Karl Hanson on risk assessment with sexual offenders, and Randy Kropp on risk assess-ment with domestic violence perpetrators. The chapters are quite brief but they are none-theless detailed and they all contain comprehensive notes to direct the interested reader to further sources of information and guidance. All chapters also contain brief vignettes, in the form of poems, about individuals subject to violent conduct and risk assessment lest we forget that at the heart of this complex and diffi cult process are people, not numbers or predictions.

This is an engaging book and one best suited for those wishing to know more about a fi eld in which they intend to begin practising, or to reassure practitioners in which risk assessment and management is a part of their work so that they know what the major issues are in the fi eld currently. If risk assessment and management is your daily undertak-ing, this book may still be of interest but it may also be a little too general to help you, for instance, to prepare to defend your risk decision making before a mental health tribunal or your risk management plan before the Parole Board. Also, while critical issues are covered in this book, risk management is covered least well, probably because, while there is now an abundance of research on the nature and predictive validity of violence risk factors, there is considerably less on what makes a difference to the prevention of violent outcomes. In addition, and for the same reason, there is nothing about making

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profi lingJ. Investig. Psych. Offender Profi l. 5: 230–231 (2008)

Book Review 231

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Investig. Psych. Offender Profi l. 5: 230–231 (2008)

DOI: 10.1002/jip

sense of the fi ndings of risk assessments in terms of preparing a risk formulation, that essential ‘story’ of individual risk which makes sense of the client for both him or her and those tasked with their management. But perhaps such observations are unfair, risk for-mulation and risk management planning are where the fi eld is going, and not before time, but it is not there yet. This book describes the fi eld now, paving the way for the truly exciting things to come.

Dr. Caroline LoganSecure Psychological Services, Mersey Care NHS Trust Ashworth Hospital,

Parkbourn, Maghull, Liverpool L31 1HW, UK. Email: caroline.logan@merseycare.nhs.uk

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/jip.93

REFERENCE

Webster, C. D., Douglas, K. S., Eaves, D., & Hart, S. D. (1997). HCR-20: Assessing risk for violence, Version 2. Burnaby, British Columbia: Simon Fraser University.