| To protect victims and society, sex offenders with psychopathic characteristics need to be identified as quickly as possible. Earlier detection would allow earlier referral for further testing and placement recommendations. The present study used existing items from the MMPI-2 to construct a 15 item scale, the Dangerous Scale (DS), which was used to predict total scores on Robert Hare's Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R). The DS correlated quite strongly with PCL-R total scores for rapists. Both the DS and PCL-R were noticeably less effective in identifying dangerousness levels among pedophiles. The implications of these findings and the direction of future research are discussed. |
