Predicting disciplinary infractions and recidivism with PICTS spiked profiles in an effort to determine whether sentimentality is a genuine criminal thinking style

Abstract

In an effort to ascertain whether sentimentality (justifying criminal behavior by engaging in ostensibly positive actions and carrying out presumably good deeds) qualifies as a criminal thinking style several analyses were performed on subgroups of a larger sample of 3,039 male federal prisoners. First, the ability of a ‘spike Sn’ Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) profile, in which Sentimentality (Sn) is the only criminal thinking style scale elevated at or above a T-score of 60, was assessed to determine its ability to predict subsequent disciplinary infractions and recidivism relative to spiked profiles involving the other seven PICTS thinking style scales. Comparisons between 110 participants with ‘spike Sn’ profiles and 352 participants with spikes on one of the other PICTS thinking style scales revealed that the former group accumulated significantly fewer incident reports for aggressive disciplinary infractions than the latter group. Restricting the analysis to individuals released from custody showed that 49 participants with ‘spike Sn’ profiles displayed lower levels of subsequent recidivism compared to 164 participants with other spiked profiles. These results suggest that sentimentality may not be particularly effective in predicting criminal justice outcomes, offering further evidence of its questionable status as a criminal thinking style.