November 2, 2007

Two new texts in forensic psychology

Joining an increasingly crowded forensic psychological arena comes Rebecca Jackson's Learning Forensic Assessment. I haven't read it so I can't endorse it, but it's got some great chapter authors and is being advertised as more practical than many texts, providing both didactic information and discussions of specific assessment instruments and techniques. At 600-plus pages, it includes topical coverage of:
  • Competency to Stand Trial
  • Insanity
  • Psychopathy
  • Violence Risk
  • Civil Commitment of Sex Offenders
  • Capital Sentencing
  • Competency for Execution
  • Juvenile Assessment Issues
  • Civil Assessment
  • Child Custody
  • and more ...
For other forensic psychology texts, check out my Forensic Psychology book list at Amazon.

And from Oxford University Press comes Stalking: Psychiatric Perspectives and Practical Approaches, edited by Debra A. Pinals, Director of the Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship and Training Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

It's written by a committee of nationally recognized forensic psychiatrists for use by mental health professionals, judges, lawyers, law enforcement officials, journalists, and anyone else with an interest in this increasingly high-profile topic. Topics covered include classification of stalking behaviors, risk assessment and risk management, the victim's perspective, celebrity stalking, forensic assessment, juvenile and adolescent stalking, and the emerging topic of cyberstalking.

The American Journal of Psychiatry has an online review by Sibel Cakir, MD.