Clinical Assessment of Psychopathology in Violent and Nonviolent Juvenile Offenders

• NCJ Number: 90397
• Author(s): L M Richardson; V H Elion; K S Solway
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 27 pages
• Sale Source: Eric Document Reproduction Service
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, August 26, 1981.

Annotation

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Rorschach test are frequently used in juvenile justice settings to assess current psychological functioning and to predict future behavior. The Exner Comprehensive System, which standardized the Rorschach, made possible a comparison of the Rorschach and the MMPI in an investigation of their relative efficacy in discriminating between violent and nonviolent juvenile offenders.

Abstract

Youth (N=39), referred to a metropolitan juvenile probation department and charged with serious person or property offenses, completed a test battery which included the MMPI and the Rorschach. Few significant differences emerged between violent and nonviolent juvenile offenders on the MMPI and the Rorschach, indicating that both instruments were largely unsuccessful in discriminating between violent and nonviolent juvenile offenders. However, the two measures provided similar data on the nature and degree of psychopathology present in the sample despite their vast divergence in psychometric approaches. The test data imply that the nature and degree of psychopathology present in violent and nonviolent juvenile offenders are similar. (Author/NRB)(Resources in Education (ERIC) abstract)