RESUMEN
The present study was conducted to assess the personality traits of Pakistani prison inmates both men and women and their vulnerability towards various psychopathologies. Centre for Clinical Psychology, University of the Punjab, Lahore-Pakistan from March 2005 to September, 2005. Exploratory study. Purposive sampling strategy was used to select the sample. The sample consisted of 50 men [Mean age= 35.6 years] and 30 women [Mean age= 38.2 years] prison inmates and minimum level of education was matric [10 years of schooling]. All prison inmates were taken from Central Jail, Lahore, Pakistan. 16 Personality Factors Questionnaire was administered to assess the personality traits. An indigenous checklist named: Symptom Checklist-R[2] was used to see the vulnerability of prison inmates towards various psychopathologies. Results indicated that majority of the men prison inmates possessed introvert type of personality, had emotional instability and poor social skills. The results of Symptom Checklist-R indicated that 34% of the subjects scored high on Depression, 26% on Somatoform, 16%; on Anxiety; 32% on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder [OCD]; 26% on Schizophrenia and 10% on Level of Frustration Tolerance [LFT] scale. On the other hand, majority of the women prison inmates exhibited aloofness, low mental capacity, introversion, suspiciousness, jealousy, anxiety and poor self control as salient traits of their personality. While results of Symptom Checklist-Revised revealed that 70% of the subjects scored significantly high on Depression, 63% on Somatoform, 34% on Anxiety, 57% on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, 23% on Schizophrenia and 66% on Level of Frustration Tolerance scale. The findings lead towards poor mental health and personality problems of the prison inmates, so it is imperative to devise some preventive measures to control crimes and there is also a need to improve the condition of the jails in Pakistan