2005/07/28 by Howard E. Barbaree · 1 citation
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Crime Patterns and Interventions #Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis #Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending
paper · doi:10.1177/0886260505278262
openalex publication_date 2005/07/28 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Seto and Barbaree reported the unexpected finding that adult male sex offenders who scored higher on psychopathy and exhibited better behavior in treatment were almost four times more likely to commit a new serious offence than other offenders once released. The present study reexamined this sample after a longer follow-up time using more complete recidivism data from a national police database. Although psychopathy continued to be a significant predictor of general and serious recidivism, treatment behavior was no longer related to either general or serious recidivism, and there was no statistically significant interaction between psychopathy and treatment behavior. Additional analyses ruled out the possibility that the differences between studies could be accounted for by the different average length of follow-up. A direct comparison of the two sources of recidivism data showed that differences in recidivism between subgroups were reduced by using the more complete recidivism data.