Utility of the Megaree-Bohn MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) Typological Assignments - Study With a Sample of Death Row Inmates

• NCJ Number: 101467
• Journal: Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 13 Issue: 1 Dated: (March 1986) Pages: 5-17
• Author(s): Dahlstrom W G; J H Panton; K P Bain; L E Dahlstrom
• Date Published: 1986
• Length: 13 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Panton (1978) examined 55 felons awaiting execution in North Carolina Central Prison before and after the U.S. Supreme Court declared the North Carolina death penalty unconstitutional.

Abstract

The interval between tests ranged from 6 to 49 months. Subsequently, these men were resentenced and reassigned in the prison system. Profiles from this serendipitous study were used to examine the usefulness of the Megargee-Bohn (M-B) classification system, which was derived from federal offenders, in evaluating felons in a state system who were tested under two quite dramatically different penal circumstances. Because capital offenses are a relatively rare occurrence in the federal prison system, it seemed important to know how well the M-B covered profiles obtained from offenders in a state system found guilty of such charges (murder, rape, or first-degree burglary). The findings on this and related problems in the application of configural rules were encouraging in regard to reproducibility across workers and prison system but less so in stability of type of assignment. (Publisher abstract)