Using the MMPI-2 in Criminal Justice and Correctional Settings

2006
Author:

Edwin I. Megargee

Provides an empirical approach to using the MMPI-2 in correctional settings

The MMPI-2 is the most widely used personality assessment instrument in criminal justice and correctional settings. Based on empirical research with prisoners and other offenders, this is the first work that directly instructs correctional psychologists in the unique applications and interpretations of the MMPI-2 in these settings.

Edwin I. Megargee addresses how administration, scoring, and evaluation of the MMPI-2 differs in correctional settings.

This book is a ‘must have’ for those using the MMPI-2 in criminal justice/correctional settings.

American Jails

The MMPI-2 is the most widely used and thoroughly researched personality assessment instrument in criminal justice and correctional settings. Based on empirical research with prisoners and other offenders, this is the first work that directly instructs correctional psychologists in the unique applications and interpretations of the MMPI-2 in these settings.

A leading expert on the MMPI instruments, Edwin I. Megargee addresses how administration, scoring, and evaluation of the MMPI-2 differs in correctional settings. He describes the issues that psychologists must take into account, including the challenges of administering the MMPI-2 to prisoners; the assessment of malingering and deception; the meaning of offenders’s elevated scores on the various validity, clinical, supplementary, and content scales, including the new RC and PSY-5 scales; the difficulties of using conventional code-type analyses with criminal offenders; and instructions for interpreting offenders’s profiles with the empirically derived Megargee classification system.

The book concludes with a discussion of the interpretive dimensions of Megargee’s computerized Criminal Justice and Correctional Report and case studies illustrating the analysis of the MMPI-2 profiles of various types of criminal offenders.

Edwin I. Megargee is professor emeritus of psychology at Florida State University.

This book is a ‘must have’ for those using the MMPI-2 in criminal justice/correctional settings.

American Jails

Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Why Use the MMPI-2 to Assess Criminal Offenders?
Chapter 2. Administration of the MMPI-2 in Criminal Justice and Correctional Settings
Chapter 3. Determining Protocol Validity
Chapter 4. Interpreting the MMPI-2 Clinical Scales
Chapter 5. Coding and Code-Type Interpretation
Chapter 6. The Megargee MMPI-2-Based Offender Classification System
Chapter 7. Interpreting the MMPI-2 Supplementary Scales
Chapter 8. Interpreting the MMPI-2 Content Scales
Chapter 9. The MMPI-2 Criminal Justice and Correctional Report
Chapter 10. Putting It All Together: Illustrative Clinical Cases

Appendix: Alphabetic List of MMPI-2 Scales

Notes
References
Index