Risk factors for violent behavior among incarcerated male psychiatric patients: A multimethod approach

A multimethod approach that included demographic, criminal offense, drug us e, neuropsychological, Rorschach, psychiatric diagnosis, and psychopathy ch aracteristics was used to evaluate 131 incarcerated male psychiatric inpati ents. Each criminal offense was ranked from nonviolent to severely violent, and participants were classified as having lifetime histories of either hi gh or low violent behavior. Univariate analyses revealed 12 characteristics which independently discriminated inmates with lifetime histories of high or low violent behavior (married, non-Caucasian race, Axis I psychotic diag nosis, drug other than alcohol or marijuana used most, positive for psychop athy on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, scores indicating impairmen t on the Halstead Impairment Index and Category Test, and five Rorschach me asures). Logistic regression revealed that eight of those characteristics ( married, non-Caucasian race, Axis I psychotic diagnosis, positive for psych opathy on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, scores indicating impairm ent on the Halstead Impairment Index, and Rorschach Coping Deficit Index, P ersonal Responses, and Raw Sum Special Scores) significantly contributed to identifying inmates with lifetime histories of highly violent behavior. Da ta are provided for sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predict ive power, and overall correct classification rate for neuropsychological a nd Rorschach measures. Because this sample represented only incarcerated ma le psychiatric inpatients, and not a general prison population, caution as to limits of generalization are discussed. Implications for use of this inf ormation in understanding violent behavior are also discussed.