The Huesmann, Lefkowitz, and Eron Validity (F) + Psychopathic Deviate (Pd) + Hypomania (Ma) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory index of aggression and Heilbrun's hypothesis regarding the interaction of intelligence and psychopathy in relation to violent behavior were evaluated within a sample of adult male offenders. The F + Pd + Ma composite did not differentiate significantly between inmates who had been classified according to the violent or nonviolent nature of their most recent offenses, although it did positively correlate with the subjects' lifetime total number of violent convictions. Nonetheless, this latter correlation was of extremely small magnitude, and the combination of scales F, Pd, and Ma performed no better than Pd alone. Low levels of intellectual functioning were associated with violent crime in all analyses; however, contrary to Heilbrun, the relationship of intelligence and psychopathy to violence was found to be linear and additive rather than interactive, regardless of whether psychopathy was defined as F + Pd + Ma or as Pd only.

Clinical and statistical predictions of six categories of recidivism among 198 adult male felony probationers were compared and combined, both before and after correcting for the restricted range of the predictor vanables The statistical composite consistently outperformed decision makers for the undifferentiated recidivism catena of arrest and conviction The opposite state of affairs was seen to exist for all three indices of violent recidivism, but only after correction for restriction of range The combination of both variables tended not to produce significant increases m criterion variance compared to the superior predictor alone, the major exception being incarceration for any offense Decision makers performed best when forecasting violent criminal conduct that resulted m incarceration, and this contingency table was subjected to a detailed analysis of the outcomes of prediction This included two methods of estimating the probable probationary performance of 141 members of the initial sample who were sentenced to pnson and consideration of the utilities associated with false positive and false negative errors Partially because of the seeming impossibility of achieving perfect prediction, it was concluded that there is a need for decision-making guidelines that include only those cnminological vanables that can serve the dual purpose of predicting recidivism and indicating which offenders, because of the social harm for which they have been responsible, are the most deserving of impnsonment as punishment

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Frequencies of prior violent and nonviolent criminal convictions among 198 adult male felony offenders were dummy coded and analyzed in relation to probation outcome, defined as success, nonviolent failure, or violent failure. Only the results for prior nonviolent offenses were statistically significant, and although nonviolent failures on probation were nearly four times more common than were violent failures, the nonviolent predictor set was equally sensitive to the two types of recidivism. The association between prior nonviolent offenses and probation outcome was attenuated by the influence of age; however, neither the interaction between age and prior nonviolent convictions nor between this latter variable and prior violence was statistically significant. In accounting for the findings, it was concluded that persistent nonviolent criminality usually reflects a generalized propensity for social deviance and is therefore of some predictive value with heterogeneous groups of offenders. In contrast, because violence is often due to transitory psychological states that emerge in response to atypical circumstances, it is a relatively poor indicator of the likelihood of future similar behavior.

Scores on the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory (BDHI) were analyzed in relation to violent versus nonviolent criminality and ethnic group membership within a sample of adult, male offenders. Although the white, Mexican-American, and black subjects differed on both psychometric and criminological variables, there was no statistically significant association between these predictors and criteria for either the total sample or the individual ethnic groups. The results were seen to contradict recent claims regarding the validity of the BDHI as a discriminator of violent behavior.