Fifteen Eighty Four

May 4th, 1987 marked the beginning of a string of violent sexual attacks on women across Southern Ontario. During this time at least eighteen women across the districts of Scarborough, Peel, and St. Catharine’s were physically and sexually brutalized. Three were killed. At about 9.30 in the evening on Sunday the 7th of August 1987, 19-year-old Julian Night, a former Australian Army officer cadet, armed himself and walked a short distance from his house to Clifton Hill, a suburb in Melbourne, and started shooting at people in cars driving on the highway. He killed seven and wounded nineteen. Whether past cases or more recent, the underlying reasons for serial killings and mass murder and successful interventions with offenders are explored in the latest edition of the Cambridge Handbook of Forensic Psychology edited by Jennifer Brown and Miranda Horvath.

The new edition covers theory, behaviours, assessment, interventions, civil proceedings and professional practice issues. The 45 chapters are written by authoritative forensic psychology academics and practitioners presenting new topics such as radicalisation, strength-based approaches to addiction recovery and desistence from crime and restorative justice alternatives as well as updated reading in the substantive areas covered by most university post graduate programmes. The editors were particularly anxious to give a platform for the newly qualified to publish their work and showcase their innovative thinking.

For students wishing to write well informed term papers the chapters covering theories of violence, sex offending and acquisitive crime as well as detailed accounts of the behaviour of offenders will be essential reading. Trainee forensic psychologists will find the chapters on ethics, culturally competent practice, supervision, professional training routes and case formulation especially relevant in covering topics required to become accredited. Established forensic psychologists and practitioners in related fields such as policing, the law, probation, corrections can maintain their CPD credentials through reading chapters on decision making, investigative interviewing and assessment techniques and interventions with offenders. Activists, support service NGOs and ancillary volunteers in both victim and offender support will inform their provision from material found in chapters on domestic violence, stalking, arson, child sexual exploitation, victimology and preventing delinquency.

The handbook covers emotionally challenging areas and the chapter on Immigration, asylum seekers and refugees in particular is a difficult read and will make you both sad and angry about the way these terribly vulnerable human beings are treated. The book also offers guidance on managing stress for those in practice and emphasising the importance of professionally managed supervision.

Mindful of the recent events around MeToo and Black Lives Matter, all the contributing authors have reflected on diversity issues particularly race and gender as well as age with the young being represented in chapters on offending and sexual exploitation. Additionally, there are contributions covering intellectual disabilities and head injury effects on behaviour.

The chapter writers represent many fields of expertise and cover work from Europe, Australasia, USA, Canada and the UK.