ASSESSING CRIMINAL THINKING IN MALE SEX OFFENDERS WITH THE PSYCHOLOGICAL INVENTORY OF CRIMINAL THINKING STYLES

A sample of 543 male inmates undergoing sex offender treatment completed the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS). As predicted, the PICTS General Criminal Thinking (GCT), Proactive ( P), and Reactive ( R) scores correlated with sexual risk as measured by the total score on the Static-99. However, only the GCT and P scores correlated with sentence length, and none of the PICTS scores successfully discriminated between a current offense of child molestation and a current offense of adult rape/sexual assault. A confirmatory factor analysis verified previous factor analyses of the PICTS conducted on nonsex offenders whereby the PICTS thinking style scales displayed significantly better fit with a two-factor (proactive, reactive) than with a one-factor ( general criminal thinking) model. These results lend preliminary support to the notion that criminal thinking in general and proactive/instrumental criminal thinking in particular have something to offer sex offender assessment.