Most of the literature in forensic mental health assessment is organized around the particular legal issue that is the focus of a given assessment, tool, or research study. This book starts with a different assumption: There are broad principles of forensic assessment that are applicable across different legal issues. If such principles exist, they should be derived from and supported by sources of authority in ethics, law, science, and profes- sional practice. This is what I seek to do in this book, with each of the 29 broad principles of forensic mental health assessment described and ana- lyzed from the.
