Contents: Series Preface; Introduction; Part I Criminal Forensic Assessment: Violence risk assessment: science and practice, K.S. Douglas and C.D. Webster; Prediction versus management models relevant to risk assessment: the importance of legal decision-making context, K. Heilbrun; Searching for the pancultural core of psychopathic personality disorder, D.J. Cooke, C. Michie and S.D. Hart; The characteristics of persistent sexual offenders: a meta-analysis of recidivism studies, R.K. Hanson and K.E. Morton-Bourgon; The competence of criminal defendants: a theoretical reformulation, R.J. Bonnie; An investigation into the construct of competence: a comparison of the FIT, the MacCat-CA, and the MacCat-T, P.A. Zapf and R. Roesch. Part II Civil Forensic Assessment: Legal protection in psychiatry: balancing the rights and needs of patients and society, J. Legemaate; The MacArthur Treatment Competence Study I: mental illness and competence to consent to treatment, P.S. Appelbaum and T. Grisso; Mental disorder, violence, and gender, P.C. Robbins, J. Monahan and E. Silver; Empirical limits for forensic assessment of PTSD litigants, W.J. Koch, M. O'Neill and K.S. Douglas; A critical assessment of child custody evaluation, R.E. Emery, R.K. Otto and W.T. O'Donohue. Part III Forensic Treatment: From nothing works to what works: changing professional ideology in the 21st century, F.T. Cullen and P. Gendreau; Psychopathy and therapeutic pessimism: clinical lore or clinical reality?, R.T. Salekin; Developments in the assessment and treatment of sexual offenders: looking backward with a view to the future, J. Abracen and J. Looman; Evaluation of a national prison-based treatment program for sexual offenders in England and Wales, C. Friendship, R.E. Mann and A.R. Beech; Treatment effects on forensic psychiatric patients measured with the HCR-20 violence risk assessment scheme, H. Belfrage and K.S. Douglas; Evaluation of a mental health treatment court with assertive community treatme