PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Zeiss, Robert A.
AU  - Tanke, Elizabeth Decker
AU  - Fenn, Howard H.
AU  - Yesavage, Jerome A.
TI  - Dangerousness Commitments: Indices of Future Violence Potential?
DP  - 1996 Jun 01
TA  - Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
PG  - 247--253
VI  - 24
IP  - 2
4099  - http://jaapl.org/content/24/2/247.short
4100  - http://jaapl.org/content/24/2/247.full
SO  - J Am Acad Psychiatry Law1996 Jun 01; 24
AB  - This study examines the accuracy of long-term clinical predictions of dangerousness among psychiatric inpatients and explores factors influencing the levels of such accuracy. Hospital and state criminal history records of all psychiatric patients (N = 31) for whom, during a four-year period, treatment staff pursued extended civil commitments based on dangerousness under the Postcertification for the Imminently Dangerous statute (California Welfare and Institutions Code § 5300) were reviewed. A matched control group consisted of 31 patients who had been placed on 14-Day Certifications for Dangerousness to Others, but who were not subsequently placed on 180-Day Postcertifications. Sixty-one percent of patients in the postcertification group engaged in documented physically assaultive behavior during the extended one- to five-year follow-up period, compared with 26 percent of patients in the matched control group, suggesting that inclusion in the extended commitment group was indicative of greater long-term potential for assault. Differences in assaultiveness did not emerge during the first year of followup, but became clear and significant over subsequent years. Accuracy of prediction differed as a function of patient ethnic group.