ABSTRACT
The profession of psychiatry is seen by society as possessing the special technical knowledge necessary to make these complex assessments. It is the psychiatrist who is constantly identified in mental health laws as the appropriate professional to render these evaluations and who has emerged as the expert in the prediction of dangerousness. Historical processes resulted in an acceptance of psychiatrists as society’s experts in predicting dangerousness. Information on the psychiatrists’ reasons for a finding of dangerousness were obtained from the official examination report submitted to the court. In the mid-nineteenth century, the American public began to demand protection from involuntary mental hospitalization in the form of commitment laws, in which the primary justifications for involuntary institutionalization became dangerousness and the need for care and treatment. Perhaps the single most important indicator of the success of the psychiatric predictions is the actual number of these patients subsequently arrested for violent crimes.
