Gavin De Becker

Gavin de Becker is our Nation's best-known expert on the prediction and management of violence. His work has earned him three Presidential appointments and a position on a congressional committee. He was twice appointed to the President's Advisory Board at the U.S. Department of Justice, and he served two terms on the Governor's Advisory Board at the California Department of Mental Health. His 520-member consulting firm advises government agencies, universities, police departments, corporations...See more

Gavin de Becker is our Nation's best-known expert on the prediction and management of violence. His work has earned him three Presidential appointments and a position on a congressional committee. He was twice appointed to the President's Advisory Board at the U.S. Department of Justice, and he served two terms on the Governor's Advisory Board at the California Department of Mental Health. His 520-member consulting firm advises government agencies, universities, police departments, corporations, and media figures on the assessment of threats and hazards. Gavin de Becker & Associates maintains the world's largest library of threat and obsessive communications, consisting of more than 400,000 pieces of material. Mr. de Becker's first book The Gift of Fear was the Nation's #1 Bestseller, on the New York Times Bestseller List for seventeen weeks. It is now published in thirteen languages. In 2008, Oprah Winfrey dedicated an entire show to commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the book's publication. His second book, Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children & Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane) was the #1 parenting book of 1999. His post-9/11 book on terrorism, Fear Less, was published in 2002 and featured on Larry King Live, The Today Show, The O'Reilly Factor, and The View. Mr. de Becker's most recent book Just 2 Seconds: Using Time and Space to Defeat Assassins, presents the result of a study of more than 1400 attacks and incidents involving at-risk people. Though not written for a general public audience, the book has readers in 25 countries. Mr. de Becker wrote the introduction for To Have Or To Harm, the first book on stalking (Warner Books), and for Beauty Bites Beast: Awakening the Warrior Within Women and Girls, and he's written more than forty articles and white papers, several of which have been reprinted by the Department of Justice's National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Mr. de Becker is the designer of the MOSAIC threat assessment systems used to screen threats to Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, members of Congress, and senior officials of the CIA. Along with the U.S. Marshals Service, he co-designed the MOSAIC system used for assessing threats to Federal Judges and prosecutors. MOSAIC systems are also used by police departments all over America for assessment of spousal abuse cases. Mr. de Becker has shared his philosophies about prevention of violence in several appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show, 60 Minutes, Larry King Live, and 20/20. He has also been profiled in Time and Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and many others. Mr. de Becker is a Senior Fellow at the UCLA School of Public Affairs and, a Senior Advisor to the Rand Corporation on public safety and justice matters. See less