Book excerpt: The second edition of this award-winning textbook has been thoroughly revised and updated throughout. Building on the success of the first edition, the book continues to address the History and Practice of Forensic Psychiatry, Legal Regulation of the Practice of Psychiatry, Psychiatry in relation to Civil Law, Criminal Law, and Family Law. Important sections such as Special Issues in Forensic Psychiatry, Law and the Legal System, and Landmark Cases in Mental Health Law are included. Designed to meet the needs of practitioners of forensic psychiatry, for residents in forensic psychiatry, and those preparing for the specialty examination in Forensic Psychiatry of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, this volume will also answer the many questions faced by mental health professionals, mental health administrators, correctional health professionals and correctional health administrators, attorneys, judges, probation and parole officers and administrators all of whom, at one time or another, require a substantive presentation of the entire field of forensic psychiatry in the USA.