ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief overview of the relationship between mental illness and offending to emphasise the importance of addressing offending issues with offenders who have mental illness. It argues that the use of evidence-based structured professional judgement (SPJ) instruments have the capacity to assist clinicians in these assessment tasks. The factors most commonly associated with violent behaviour in those suffering from a mental condition are analogous to those that contribute to violence in the non-mentally ill population, rather than factors related to psychological distress or mental illness. Several risk assessment measures comprise protective factors or strengths such as the Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) and the Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (LS/CMI). Structured multi-item SPJ instruments that assess the presence and relevance of dynamic risk and protective factors are important for the elucidation of treatment need and the assessment of change over time.
