The PCL-R, PAI, and Rorschach as Predictors of Institutional Misconduct with Incarcerated Women

Abstract

Managing the incarcerated population is the primary task within correctional settings. Using psychological assessment to predict institutional behavior, the psychologist has a unique set of skills essential to the management of prisoners. PCL-R, PAI, and Rorschach data were compared with institutional infractions (total, physical, verbal, non-aggressive) among 126 incarcerated women. Multiple binary logistic regression analyses were used which found significant correlations between PCL-R total score, PAI scales (BOR, ANT, VPI), and Rorschach variables (ROD, EGOI, TCI, AgPot, AgPast, SumV, SumC’, MOR) with total, verbal, physical, and nonviolent incident reports. Each of these measures adds incrementally to the assessment and understanding of institutional misbehavior for incarcerated women. Clinical implications of the findings were presented.

Keywords:

• Correctional settings
• incarcerated women
• institutional misconduct
• PAI
• PCL-R
• psychopathy
• Rorschach

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank Dr. Les Morey for the article idea and Charles Reshenberg for helping with data collection.

Notes

1 Rater biases may play a role in the assessment of women including using the PCL-R (e.g., gender bias, affective heuristic, availability heuristics, etc., see Cunliffe et al. (2021) for a full discussion on biases present for assessing women; also see Grann, 2000; Verona & Vitale, 2018). Specifically, if the representative heuristic is present, the rater of the PCL-R has the prototypic male psychopath as their frame of reference, which will result in missing information pertinent to women. This may be an artifact related to the PCL-R being normed on males and using male pronouns throughout the PCL-R manual (Hare, 2003).

2 It is composed of three subscales, Antisocial Behaviors (ANT-A), Egocentricity (ANT-E), and Stimulus-Seeking (ANT-S).

3 It contains three subscales, Aggressive Attitude (AGG-A), Verbal Aggression (AGG-V), and Physical Aggression (AGG-P).

4 BOR contains four subscales: Affective Instability (BOR-A), Identity Problems (BOR-I), Negative Relationships (BOR-N), and Self-Harm (BOR-S).

5 PAR has Hypervigilance (PAR-H), Persecution (PAR-P), and Resentment (PAR-R) subscales.

6 Sadistic attribution and personalization of sadistic activity in the percept also relates to sadism and does not require the examinee to directly express pleasurable affect (Gacono et al., 2008).

7 As noted above, female prisons tend to house different security levels due to the total number of female prisons. Therefore, it is not recommended the findings be compared to males in medium-security prisons.

8 Protocols were excluded for PAI scores of INF > 74, ICN > 73, and/or NIM > 76 (Morey, 1991) or on the Rorschach, low IQ (< 80) and/or less than 14 responses (Exner, 2003; Smith, Gacono, Fontan et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2020). One was removed for an extreme number of Rorschach responses (R = 90).