ABSTRACT
The ability of mental health professionals (MHPs) to make accurate predictions of future violence has generated an enormous amount of research, theory, and debate since the early 1970s. Initially, most researchers were pessimistic about the ability of MHPs to predict violence. They based their view on a number of studies such as the one conducted by Kozol, Boucher, and Garofalo (1972), who found that predictions of future dangerousness, even if arrived at by a team of mental health experts, were highly inaccurate. In fact, Ennis and Litwack (1974) argued that MHPs have neither a special ability nor specialized training or techniques for making violence predictions. These authors concluded that the accuracy of MHPs’ predictions is not much better than that of laypeople.
