Personality Characteristics of Criminals

During the last twenty-five years objective personality tests have been widely used to investigate differences between criminals and noncriminals. Of 113 such comparisons, 42 per cent showed differences in favor of the noncriminals, while the remainder were indeterminate. The doubtful validity of many of the obtained differences, as well as the lack of consistency in the combined results, makes it impossible to conclude from these data that criminality and personality elements are associated.