From a team of leading experts comes a comprehensive, multidisciplinary examination of the most current research including the complex issue of violence and violent behavior. The handbook examines a range of theoretical, policy, and research issues and provides a comprehensive overview of aggressive and violent behavior. The breadth of coverage is impressive, ranging from research on biological factors related to violence and behavior-genetics to research on terrrorism and the impact of violence in different cultures. The authors examine violence from international cross-cultural perspectives, with chapters that examine both quantitative and qualitative research. They also look at violence at multiple levels: individual, family, neighborhood, cultural, and across multiple perspectives and systems, including treatment, justice, education, and public health.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; Part I. General Perspectives: 1. Understanding violence; 2. Origins of violent behavior over the life span; 3. A review of research on the taxonomy of life-course persistent versus adolescence-limited antisocial behavior; Part II. Biological Bases of Violence: 4. Behavior-genetics of criminality and aggression; 5. The genetics of aggression in mice; 6. The psychophysiology of aggression: autonomic, electrocortical, and neuro-imaging findings; 7. Biosocial bases of violence; 8. Neurobiology of impulsive aggression: focus on serotonin and the orbitofrontal cortex; 9. The neuropsychology of violence; 10. The interaction of nature and nurture in antisocial behavior; Part III. Individual Factors and Violence: 11. Relational aggression and gender: an overview; 12. Personality dispositions and the development of violence and conduct problems; 13. Personality and violence: the unifying role of structural models of personality; 14. Exposure to violence, mental health and violent behavior; 15. Social-cognitive processes in the development of antisocial and violent behavior; 16. Self-control theory and criminal violence; Part IV. Interpersonal Factors and Violent Behavior: 17. Peers and violence: a two sided developmental perspective; 18. Youth gangs and violent behavior; 19. Family violence; 20. Youth violence across ethnic and national groups: comparisons of rates and developmental processes; 21. Adolescent dating abuse perpetration: a review of findings, methodological limitations, and suggestions for future research; 22. Social networks and violent behavior; 23. Public health and violence: moving forward in a global context; 24. Cross-national research on violent victimization; 25. Violent juvenile delinquency: changes, consequences, and implications; 26. Strain theory and violent behavior; Part V. Contextual Factors and Violent Behavior: 27. School violence; 28. Why observing violence increases the risk of violent behavior by the observer; 29. Violence and culture in the United States; 30. Terrorism as a form of violence; 31. Therapeutic treatment approaches to violent behavior; 32. Psychopharmacology of violence; 33. Social learning and violent behavior; 34. Substance use and violent behavior; 35. Poverty/ socioeconomic status and exposure to violence in the lives of children and adolescents; 36. Social contagion of violence; Part VI. Methods for Studying Violent Behavior: 37. Studying aggression with structural equation modeling; 38. Overview of a semi-parametric, group based approach for analyzing trajectories of development; 39. Relocating violence: practice and power in an emerging field of qualitative research; Part VII. Looking Toward the Future: 40. Violent behavior and the science of prevention; 41. New directions in research on violence: bridging science, practice and policy.