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Evaluations of risk were conducted for 162 Canadian mentally disordered criminal defendants through the assembly of actuarial data, scores from special-to-purpose psychometric instruments, and scaled global predictions of dangerousness to others by clinicians and nonclinical raters. Violent conduct by participants was tracked across legal and medical institutions and the community for a subsequent 6 years, with aggregate violence base rates reaching 62%. Decisions about risk were strongly associated with participant attributes and presentations during forensic interviews, but neither linear regression equations involving background and scale items nor direct discretionary judgments could account for more than 25% of variance in the frequency of outcome violence. Predictive accuracy maximized after 3 years, and was strongest for hospital-based violence. Professional clinicians were no more accurate than nonclinical raters. Implications of these findings for the sociolegal control of violence, and for the resurgent "second generation" of risk research, are explored.

Forensic psychiatrists in six Canadian municipalities completed a single-page form following each court-ordered assessment conducted during the month of July 1978. A total of 248 cases accumulated during the study period. During the following 18 months researchers collected court dispositions on the sample. With data from all six cities pooled, 85% of patients were found fit to stand trail. Almost all, 96%, were accorded a diagnosis with 39% classified as psychotic. Overall the examining psychiatrists considered 36% to be dangerous to others in the future. When psychiatrists recommended a custodial setting, in 73% of cases the person was incarcerated. Recommendations for hospitalization were observed in 59% of cases. Although the data would seem to suggest that judges take psychiatrists' recommendations into account, the investigators were nonetheless struck by the general lack of communication between clinic and court. They offer a number a number of suggestions for improvement.

Gross demographic data are supplied on all patients held under Warrants of the Lieutenant Governor in Canada. The composition of the total population varies considerably from one province to another, with resulting differences in such important factors as total time spent on warrant. A plea is made for some kind of continuing monitoring of this expensive-to-treat group, and it is argued that the Boards of Review are, because of lack of basic statistical information, at an unnecessary disadvantage when it comes to making decisions as to whether to release individuals or not. It is suggested that a fairly simple information and tracking system could reduce treatment costs, with concomitant decreases in confinement of patients, without at the same time increasing risk of harm to the general population.