Merrill Rotter is a forensic psychiatrist working at Albert Einstein College of Medicine where he is Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Division of Law and Psychiatry for the Department of Psychiatry.    Trained in clinical psychiatry at Columbia and in forensic psychiatry at Yale, Dr. Rotter leads a program of teaching, research and clinical service for Einstein as well as the New York State Office of Mental Health (NYSOMH).  

In his OMH role, Dr. Rotter is Senior Forensic Advisor to the Commissioner of Director of NYS OMH and Director the Division of Forensic Services at Bronx Psychiatric Center.   In addition, Dr. Rotter is the Medical Director of the EAC, whose Criminal Justice Division provides mental health diversion services in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island (including serving the mental health courts therein) and re-entry services for inmates leaving Rikers Island and NYS prison.  EAC’s Health Services Division collaborates with Health Homes and managed care organizations in providing care coordination for high risk/high need populations.  

Dr. Rotter is creator and Project Director of SPECTRM, a research, training and treatment program aimed at helping to meet the needs individuals with mental illness who have a history of incarceration.  Dr. Rotter has researched, presented and published in areas related to forensic training, violence risk assessment, treatment and management of mentally ill offenders, the insanity defense, criminal recidivism and mental health diversion and re-entry.

In 2009, Dr. Rotter received the Award for Outstanding Teacher in a Forensic Fellowship Program from the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law and in 2017 Dr. Rotter was awarded Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship Teacher of the Year from the NYU School of Medicine for his contributions to the didactic curriculum shared by all the NYC-based Forensic Fellowships.

Rotter M, Barber V, Schombs F. (in press) Recovery and Recidivism Reduction for Offenders with Mental Illness: Need Identification and Associated Interventions in Care for the Mentally Disordered Offender in the Community Second edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Barber V., Rotter M.and Schombs F. (in press) Diversion Evaluations: A Specialized Forensic Examination. Behavioral Sciences & the Law.

Rosenfeld, B., Foellmi, M., Khadivi, A., Wijetunga, C., Howe, J., Nijdam-Jones, A., & Rotter, M. (2017). Determining when to conduct a violence risk assessment: development and initial validation of the Fordham Risk Screening Tool (FRST). Law and human behavior, 41(4), 325.

Rotter M, Barber-Rioja V (2015):Diversion Programs and Alternatives to Incarceration. In Robert Trestman  Kenneth Appelbaum, Jeffrey Metzner, (Eds.), The Oxford Textbook of Correctional Psychiatry. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Howe, J., Rosenfeld, B., Foellmi, M., Stern, S., & Rotter, M. (2015). Application of the HCR-20 Version 3 in civil psychiatric patients. Criminal Justice and Behavior.  doi: 10.1177/0093854815605527.

Barber-Rioja V, Rotter M. (2014) A Therapeutic Approach to Jurisprudence: A Differential Thinking Model of Sanctions and Rewards. International Journal of Forensic Mental Health. 13, 272-27

Ford E, Rotter M. (Ed.) (2014) Landmark Cases in Forensic Psychiatry. Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press.

Rotter M, Carr WA. Targeting Criminal Recidivism in Mentally Ill Offenders: Structured Clinical Approaches. Community Mental Health Journal.  Published online: 17 February 2011.

Rotter M, Carr WA, Rosenfeld B,& Magyar M. . From Incarceration to Community Care: Structured Assessment of Correctional Adaptation.  J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 39:72–7, 2011

Magyar, M., Carr, W. A., Rosenfeld, B., & Rotter, M. (2010). An exploration of the relationship between criminal cognitions and psychopathy in a civil psychiatric sample. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 54(6), 865-877.

Carr, W. A., Magyar, M., Rosenfeld, B., & Rotter, M. (2009). An Exploration of Criminal Thinking Styles in Among Civil Psychiatric Patients. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 19(5), 334-346.

Rotter M: Sexual Offenders With Mental Illness: Special Considerations for a Special Population.  Psychiatric Times 2007; 24(10).