NCJ Number
216457
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior: An International Journal Volume: 33 Issue: 6 Dated: December 2006 Pages: 782-802
Date Published
December 2006
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This study examined the use of the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) with a sample of Irish male probationers and compared the differences in thinking styles of crime persisters and desisters.
Abstract
Results indicated that scores on three of the eight PICTS scales were significantly associated with secondary crime desistance. This was particularly true for the Cognitive Indolence and Discontinuity scales, which measure the tendency to avoid thinking about the consequences of crime and the tendency to become easily sidetracked from goals. The findings also revealed that probationers who had committed crimes in the past year had stronger criminal belief systems than probationers who had not offended for at least 1 year. Moreover, probationers who had committed crimes in the past month exhibited significant differences on six of the eight scales, suggesting the rapid changes in thinking due to behavior modifications might be possible but were also likely to be short-term. The number of previous convictions did not differentiate persisters from desisters. Data were collected as part of a larger study examining the process of desistance among adult offenders in Ireland. For this study, 72 Irish men on probation completed the PICTS during a semistructured interview. The voluntary sample was drawn from the client lists of five probation teams in Dublin and included male repeat offenders between the ages of 18 and 35 years who were under supervision between September 2003 and August 2004. Data analysis included the calculation of bivariate correlations between PICTS scores and other variables under analysis, such as criminal history variables. Future research should focus on establishing the reliability and validity of the PICTS for the Irish population, particularly females who were absent from the current study due to their small numbers. Tables, note, references