Question

why is it hard to predict violence or conduct research in risk assessment?

Answer 1

• Psychiatrists have come a long way in assessing violence risk.They  can now predict short-term violence with moderate accuracy, which is substantially better than being wrong two-thirds of the time.
• Psychiatrists can’t, however, take shortcuts if they want to produce a comprehensive violence assessment.This means it is important to obtain information about the person from every possible source. This is a serious undertaking and cannot be rushed.
• Violence is “often underpredicted” in women,and it should not be ignored or minimize the possibility that a woman could become violent just because women do so less frequently than men.
• It is crucial that psychiatrists weigh mitigating factors before reaching a conclusion about a person’s violence risk. Among such factors are the capacity to bond and the presence of mentors in the person’s life.
• Another limitation which makes the process difficult is there is no instrument that is specifically useful or validated for identifying potential school shooters or mass murderers,
• Even when someone has a history of threatening behavior, the killing of innocent people can’t necessarily be prevented.The task of identifying violence-prone individuals is even trickier with young people, who have shorter histories and whose normal development often includes a period of antisocial behavior.