The Relationship Between Status Variables and Criminal Thinking in an Offender Population

The authors examined the relationship between criminal thinking factors of control, cognitive immaturity, and egocentrism, and offender characteristics (i.e., age, education, sentence length, time served, reception of mental health services) in 435 adult male offenders. Results of a canonical correlation analysis identified 1 significant and meaningful relationship between a criminal thinking set containing all 3 factors and an offender characteristic set containing all characteristics except for age. Higher levels of criminal thinking on all 3 factors were associated with more education, longer sentence length, more time served, and lack of reception of mental health services. Implications for providing treatment with offenders that targets reducing criminal recidivism and future directions for investigation into the relationship between dynamic recidivism risk factors and offender characteristics are discussed.