The notion that serious mental illness drives criminal risk has historically had a strong influence on the construction and interpretation of parole suitability evaluations. By the strongest available evidence, the causal link between mental illness and criminal behavior is weak at best. A growing body of research shows that for the majority of justice-involved individuals with serious mental illness, symptoms do not directly cause criminal behavior. Risk factors that predict recidivism for offenders are the same for those with and without mental illness, and include antisocial cognition, procriminal attitudes, instability in education and employment, and disordered family and peer associations. In offenders with mental illness, these predictors are seen as stronger indicators of recidivism than symptoms of mental illness. This finding has significant implications for forensic psychologists conducting violence risk assessment for parole hearings. A well-constructed forensic psychological formulation should account for the individual’s mental illness without overstating the risk of symptom remission or underplaying other, more universally applicable factors.