The relationship between psychopathy facets and types of criminal offences

Abstract

The Psychopathy Checklist—Revised (PCL‐R) is a widely used measurement of psychopathy comprising interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and antisocial facets representing narrow‐band characteristics associated with the construct. However, there is little research on whether the distinct facets of psychopathy show specialised relationships with different types of criminal offences. The PCL‐R was administered to 138 adults incarcerated at a county jail. Arrests were coded into broad categories (i.e., crimes against persons, property or society), as well as for specific offence types (e.g. burglary, assault) using US crime definitions. Zero‐order correlations and zero‐inflated regression models showed significant relationships between: the lifestyle facet and property and societal crimes, mainly drug offences; the affective facet and crimes against persons; and the antisocial facet with all three major crime categories, as well as burglary, motor vehicle theft, robbery and assault. Overall, these results indicate that the PCL‐R facets offer unique information about specific forms of criminal behaviour.