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Poythress, Edens, and Lilienfeld (1998) recently reported a moderately strong correlation between Hare's (1991) Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) and a newly developed self-report measure of psychopathy, the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) of Lilienfeld and Andrews (1996), in an ethnically diverse sample of 50 inmates from a youthful offender prison. The present study reports follow-up data regarding disciplinary infractions in this sample and examines the utility of the PCL-R and PPI for identifying those at risk for institutional misbehavior. Generally modest, but statistically significant, correlations were obtained between both measures and indices of aggressive institutional behavior. Multiple regression analyses revealed that both measures accounted for common variance in the criterion but that neither accounted for significant unique variance. Results are discussed in terms of the clinical utility of these measures in populations of young offenders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A set of measures assessing abilities related to legal standards for competence in the adjudicative process were administered to mentally-disordered criminal defendants with diagnoses of schizophrenia, affective disorder, other psychiatric disorders, and to criminal defendants without diagnosed mental disorder. Mentally-disordered defendants were recruited from two groups: those who had been committed for restoration of competence and those who had been identified by jail personnel as mentally ill. Significant impairments in competence-related abilities were found for approximately half of the defendants with schizophrenia. Defendants with schizophrenia scored lower on measures of understanding, reasoning, and appreciation related to the adjudication process. The association between symptoms and competence-related abilities was explored within diagnostic groups. Conceptual disorganization was found to be inversely correlated with performance on all measures in both defendants with schizophrenia and those with affective disorders. For other psychotic symptoms, differing patterns of correlations were found in the two major diagnostic groups. The implications for policy designed to safeguard the rights of defendants to be tried while competent are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]