Factors associated with treatment acceptance and compliance among incarcerated male sex offenders.

The files of sex offenders who had been offered treatment at a medium-security state prison were divided into three groups: treatment refusal (n = 59), treatment noncompliance (n = 61), and treatment compliance (n = 36). Demographic, offense-related, clinical, and psychological assessment data were collected. Significant differences were found between groups on years to parole eligibility; plea; relation to victim; childhood sexual victimization; and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Variable Response Inconsistency (VRIN), Lie (L), and Masculinity-Femininity (Mf) scale scores. Logistic regression analyses revealed that significant predictors of treatment refusal include increased time until parole eligibility and lower VRIN and Mf scores (vs. noncompliant) as well as no history of childhood sexual victimization and higher L scores (vs. compliant). Having entered a not-guilty plea was the only significant predictor of noncompliance among those who initially accepted treatment. These findings are discussed in relation to previous studies of sex offender treatment compliance and directions for future research.

Criminal-thinking styles and illegal behavior among college students: validation of the PICTS.

The present study examined the relation of self-reported criminal-thinking styles and self-reported illegal behavior among college students. Participants were 177 male and 216 female (N=393) undergraduate students. Participants were divided by gender and further classified into four groups of self-reported illegal behavior: control-status offenses, drug crimes, property crimes, and violent crimes against people. The psychological inventory of criminal-thinking styles (PICTS) (1) measured criminal-thinking patterns on eight scales. Results indicated that males who committed violent crimes against people endorsed significantly higher levels of distorted criminal-thinking patterns on all scales than the control-status offenses, and drug crimes groups. Interestingly, female participants who committed property crimes displayed six significantly elevated PICTS scales whereas females with violent crimes against people had significant elevations on only four of the criminal-thinking style scales. These results extend Walter's initial validation of the PICTS with incarcerated respondents to a non-incarcerated population and show potential use of the PICTS with other populations.