MCMI-III Profiles of Convicted Contact Sexual Offenders: A Cluster Analysis

Abstract

As suggested by previous research, the study of personality traits among sexual offenders could be an important consideration in the understanding of sexual offending. This study aims to explore the possibility of classifying sexual offenders according to their personality profiles. Based on the MCMI-III scores of 97 convicted contact sexual offenders, a cluster hierarchical analysis was performed. Next, the groups were characterized according to their sociodemographic and criminological variables and significant differences between them were sought. The two clusters found did not show different MCMI-III prototypical personality profiles, and both groups only varied in the degree of general psychopathology. The results suggest the existence of two personality profiles labeled as "pathological" and "adapted/non-pathological". The usefulness of the MCMI-III in the evaluation of sexual offenders seems limited to the detection of the presence or absence of general psychopathological symptoms. Implications of these findings for interventions are discussed.

Psychometric Properties of the Spanish Version of the Online Sexual Addiction Questionnaire: An Exploratory Study Using a Sample of Convicted Sex Offenders

“…Participants' response style is examined through the three modifying indices of the MCMI-III (i.e., Disclosure, Desirability and Debasement validity scales). This instrument has been widely used in forensic settings, to provide diagnostic and psychometric evidence of pathological disturbances (Loinaz et al, 2012;Suen, 2013), and has been proven useful in the detection of general psychopathological symptoms among adult men convicted of contact sexual offenses (Soldino et al, 2019b). It uses Base-Rate (BR) scores -BR are transformed scores reflecting the prevalence rates of particular characteristics within the standardization sample, ranging from 0 to 115.…”

Caracterización multivariante y cartografía de perfiles de delincuentes ecológicos en Barinas, Venezuela

“…Con base en la información proveniente de variables sociodemográficas, se obtienen los perfiles de este tipo en el ámbito criminológico (Caravaca, Sánchez & Luna, 2013;Soldino, Carbonell-Vayá, Perkins & Tibau, 2019). La elaboración de perfiles sociodemográficos tiene como propósito ofrecer información a los responsables de diseñar y ejecutar políticas públicas y programas de desarrollo social para la atención de sectores específicos de la población, de los académicos, de los organismos no gubernamentales y de la población en general (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía [INEGI], 2012).…”