Sex and Violence: The Psychology of Violence and Risk Assessment

Produced in response to the growing international demand for information, this book details the latest research in understanding and controlling violent and sexual offences. Increasing numbers of psychologists are now studying and working with offenders to the advancement of forensic psychology. Chapters cover contributions from ten different countries and are grouped into three sections dealing with risk assessment, sex offenders and offences and violent offenders and offences. The first section discusses the progress that has been made towards making accurate decisions about the risk that an individual poses to the community and emphasises the need to draw on both clinical experience and research. The second section explores understandings and investigations of sexual offences including discussion on: American commitment laws for sexually violent predators; the status of "recovered memories" in criminal trials; factors influencing delays in reporting sexual abuse; a model of rapists' accounts of their offences; and situational factors in sexual offending. The final section on violent offenders and offences includes discussion on: criminal careers; domestic violence; mutiliation-murder in Japan; offender profiling; and sentencing of homicide cases. This book will be of interest to scholars in criminology, psychology and forensic psychiatry and to policy-makers and practitioners who deal with sexual and violent offences.

Penelope Harvey is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of  Manchester. Peter Gow is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of  Manchester.