Mental Illness, Dangerousness, the Police Power and Risk Assessment

Understand the relationship between mental illness, dangerous behavior and the police power and the ability of mental health professionals to predict dangerousness as well as the significance of risk assessment instruments. Discover how these relationships and concepts play out in a variety of settings, including involuntary civil commitments, right to refuse treatment, insanity defense acquittee retention hearings, sex offender status hearings, sentencing cases, death penalty ‘future dangerousness' inquiries, death penalty mitigation hearings, and Tarasoff (duty to protect) cases in civil law.