Previous ed.: 1988.

1. The Forensic Psychiatric Services -- 2. Legal Aspects: The Courts and their Sentences -- 3. Legal Aspects: The Law and the Mentally Abnormal Offender -- 4. Legal Aspects: Appeals and Protection -- 5. Criminological Facts and Theories -- 6. Offences Against Property and Forensic Psychiatry -- 7. Offences Against the Person and Forensic Psychiatry -- 8. Mental Illness and Forensic Psychiatry: The Functional Psychoses and Neuroses -- 9. Mental Illness and Forensic Psychiatry: Organic Brain Syndromes -- 10. Psychopathic Disorder and Forensic Psychiatry -- 11. Mental Retardation and Forensic Psychiatry -- 12. Sexual Disorders and Forensic Psychiatry -- 13. Women and Juvenile Offenders -- 14. Dangerousness -- 15. Writing a Report -- 16. Ethics and Forensic Psychiatry -- 17. Management of Patients within Secure Psychiatric Institutions -- 18. The Civil Courts and Forensic Psychiatry.

This book sets out a detailed account of the present state of forensic psychiatry and its relation to the law and medical ethics. The subjects covered make essential reading for doctors taking the Membership examination of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and will be of considerable interest to general psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, social workers, lawyers, probation officers and criminologists. This second edition incorporates the changes from the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and the Criminal Procedures (Insanity and Unfitness to Plead) Act 1991, the 1993 Code of Practice for Psychiatry, the Royal College of Psychiatrists' publication on the Ethics of Psychiatric Care in Prison, the setting up of the Special Hospital Services Authority and proposals of the Reed Committee. The text has been generally updated and there are over 20 new sections including a section on false confessions, multiple homicides, the sexual abuse of children, Munchausen's syndrome by proxy, the role of serotonin in violent behaviour, and the value of the reconviction prediction score. This edition also has been expanded to include a chapter on the civil courts and forensic psychiatry.