NCJ Number
192464
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 25 Issue: 6 Dated: December 2001 Pages: 647-661
Date Published
December 2001
Length
15 pages
Annotation
Using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R.D. Hare, 1991) diagnostic cut-off score of 30, this study examined the complete criminal career and community-release profiles of 317 Canadian Federal offenders (224 low scorers and 93 scoring within the psychopathic range).
Abstract
Adult crimes were coded according to age at commission, as well as either violent, nonviolent, or nonsexually violent. Changes in performance following release into the community were also examined. Results indicated that offenders who scored within the psychopathic range consistently committed more violent and nonviolent crimes than their counterparts for approximately three decades that spanned their late adolescence into their late 40's. Numbers of nonviolent criminal offenses committed by high PCL-R scorers declined considerably after age 30 compared to violent offenses, which declined and then rebounded in the late 30's before a major reduction was evident. Throughout adulthood, high PCL-R scorers failed during community release significantly faster than did low scorers. Importantly, from a risk-management perspective, the release performance of low PCL-R scorers improved with age; whereas, the opposite was true for high scorers. Further, offenders who scored high on the PCL-R did not show a lower charge-to-conviction ratio with age, suggesting that they may not have improved over time in their ability to manipulate the legal system. 4 figures and 37 references