Citation

Simourd DJ, Hoge RD. Crim. Justice Behav. 2000; 27(2): 256-272.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0093854800027002007

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The present study explored whether a risk/needs perspective could assist in understanding the construct of criminal psychopathy as assessed by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). Three hundred and twenty-one inmates serving sentences for violent offenses were assessed on the PCL-R and administered a variety of psychometric measures relevant to criminal conduct. Using a traditional PCL-R cutoff, 36 participants (11.2%) were designated as psychopaths and 285 (88.8%) were designated as nonpsychopaths and compared on various criminal conduct and psychometric variables.

RESULTS showed that psychopaths had significantly greater risk/needs areas than nonpsychopaths, and this pattern remained when alternative diagnostic cutoffs were used. Implications of the findings with respect to theory and practice are considered.

Language: en