I plan to access data from a California State Hospital that was collected on approximately 200 civilly committed sexually violent predators. The data was collected at various times and over several years while the patients were committed to a secure psychiatric hospital. The information is used for purposes of diagnosis, treatment planning, and research. All participants have signed confidentiality waivers permitting the use of their data for research purposes. A number of hospital staff participated in the collection. The data will only be accessed under strict guidelines set forth by the California Department of State Hospitals (CDSH) to prevent unauthorized disclosure of the information contained within the patients’ files. The data includes demographic and administrative information, a variety of psychological test battery results, and the number of incidents of reported sexual and physical violence directed towards staff and patients. One of the many psychological tests included in the data set are results …show more content…
These populations included those who were civilly committed under the classification of not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI), mentally disordered offender (MDO), mentally ill prisoner (MIP), and incompetent to stand trial (IST). This study analyzed the small percentage of offenders in the U.S. who are classified as SVPs; it suggests that this group will have noticeable predispositions of violent behavior when compared to other psychiatric groups (Vess, Murphy & Arkowitz, 2004). The findings of this study supports the idea that those with a history of violent offending have higher rates of psychopathy than their nonviolent counterparts (Vess, Murphy & Arkowitz, 2004). This study, supports the speculation of the current study; the Pd. scale of the MMPI-2 may serve as a reliable predictor of