Are psychological measures and actuarial data equally effective in discriminating among the prison population? Analysis by crimes
Metadatos
Mostrar el registro completo del ítemEditorial
PLOS ONE
Fecha
2018-06-06Referencia bibliográfica
Burneo-Garcés C, Fernández-Alcántara M, Marín-Morales A, Pérez-García M. (2018). Are psychological measures and actuarial data equally effective in discriminating among the prison population? Analysis by crimes. PLoS ONE 13(6): e0198251. [https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0198251]
Patrocinador
Health Coordination Zone 8 (Ministry of Public Health of Ecuador, MSP); Regional Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Science from Andalusian Government P2012-SEJ1723; Spanish Government PSI2013-42792-RResumen
The ability of a wide range of psychological and actuarial measures to characterize crimes
in the prison population has not yet been compared in a single study. Our main objective
was to determine if the discriminant capacity of psychological measures (PM) and actuarial
data (AD) varies according to the crime. An Ecuadorian sample of 576 men convicted of
Robbery, Murder, Rape and Drug Possession crimes was evaluated through an ad hoc
questionnaire, prison files and the Spanish adaptation of the Personality Assessment Inventory. Discriminant analysis was used to establish, for each crime, the discriminant capacity
and the classification accuracy of a model composed of AD (socio-demographic and judicial
measures) and a second model incorporating PM. The AD showed a superior discriminant
capacity, whilst the contribution of both types of measures varied according to the crime.
The PM generated some increase in the correct classification percentages for Murder,
Rape and Drug Possession, but their contribution was zero for the crime of Robbery. Specific profiles of each crime were obtained from the strongest significant correlations between
the value of each explanatory variable and the probability of belonging to the crime. The AD
model is more robust when these four crimes are characterized. The contribution of AD and
PM depends on the crime, and the inclusion of PM in actuarial models moderately optimizes
the classification accuracy of Murder, Rape, and Drug Possession crimes.