The Imperfection of Protection Through Detection and InterventionLessons from Three Decades of Research on the Psychiatric Assessment of Violence Risk

摘要

As I began writing this article,1 a "shooting rampage" at a West Palm Beach Wendy's restaurant was the latest nationally publicized instance in which an emotionally troubled individual used a firearm to maim and kill multiple victims. In this incident-as in many similar tragedies that have received national attention in recent years-the shooter fired at individuals whom he had never met and whom he had no apparent motive for harming; then, he took his own life. The senselessness of these actions understandably provoked police investigators and the killer's acquaintances to wonder whether psychiatric problems influenced his final lethal acts.3