ABSTRACT
As researchers, clinicians, and policymakers continue to struggle with balancing civil liberties and community safety, this past decade has wit nessed a virtual explosion in the development of second-and third-gen eration risk assessment instruments (Monahan, 1992). Central to this work on risk appraisals has been the introduction, for clinical purposes, of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) to applied settings. For a number of reasons, the PCL-R appears to have captured the interests of clinicians, and the diagnosis is increasingly being employed in risk assess ment strategies of prisoners and forensic patients at various stages with in the criminal justice process — from pretrial assessments to postrelease risk management (see chap. 3). Although the PCL-R is a measure of crim inal psychopathy, for reasons to be discussed shortly, it has become increasingly popular within the risk assessment paradigm.
