Predicting Recidivism With the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) in Community-Supervised Male and Female Federal Offenders Glenn D. Walters Kutztown University Christopher T. Lowenkamp Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Washington, DC Higher order scores derived from the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS; Walters, 1995) have been found to predict recidivism in released prison inmates with effect sizes in the low-moderate to medium range. The current study sought to determine whether the PICTS is capable of predicting general recidivism in a sample of 81,881 male and 14,519 female offenders on federal probation or supervised release. Results indicated that the PICTS General Criminal Thinking, Proactive, and Reactive scores and 6 of the 7 thinking style scales predicted recidivism in follow-ups of 6 or more months, 12 or more months, and 24 or more months with effect sizes in the low-moderate to medium range. The effect sizes were reduced to small and low-moderate, respectively, when age and prior arrests were controlled for in a series of partial correlations. It was also noted that the PICTS General Criminal Thinking score contributed significant diagnostic information to recidivism prediction in both males and females above and beyond the information provided by a comprehensive risk assessment procedure. These results indicate that the PICTS may be a useful adjunct to other risk assessment procedures in providing comprehensive risk prediction and management services to offenders under community supervision. Keywords: Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles, Post Conviction Risk Assessment, recidivism, federal probation, supervised release As one of the “Big Four” predictors of recidivism (Andrews, Bonta, & Wormith, 2006), antisocial cognition should be assessed routinely in offender populations. When it is not, our ability to understand and effectively intervene with serious criminal behav- ior is compromised. One barrier to formulating a complete under- standing of antisocial cognition is lack of consensus on how antisocial or criminal cognition should be assessed (Mandracchia, Morgan, Garos, & Garland, 2007). Criminal thinking can be mea- sured with several different instruments, including the Criminal Sentiments Scale—Modified (Simourd, 1997), the Measure of Criminal Attitudes and Associates (Mills, Kroner, & Forth, 2002), the Texas Christian University Criminal Thinking Scales (Knight, Garner, Simpson, Morey, & Flynn, 2006), the Measure of Of- fender Thinking Styles—Revised (Mandracchia & Morgan, 2011), and the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS; Walters, 1995). Whereas most of these instruments (the Criminal Sentiments Scale—Modified and Measure of Criminal Attitudes and Associates, in particular) focus heavily on criminal thought content (what an offender thinks), the PICTS is primarily designed to assess criminal thought process (how an offender thinks). In reality, both criminal thought content and criminal thought process should be assessed if one’s goal is to achieve a consummate understanding of antisocial cognition. A second lim- itation of current criminal thinking scales is that most are not theoretically grounded and so are potentially lacking in construct validity (Simourd & Olver, 2002). Again, the PICTS differs from most other measures of criminal thinking to the extent that it is theoretically grounded. Compared with other major criminal thinking measures, then, the PICTS is unique in at least two respects. First, whereas most measures of antisocial cognition are designed to assess criminal thought content, the PICTS is designed to assess criminal thought process. It is sometimes difficult to disentangle criminal thought content and process and the PICTS clearly covers both areas, but it places greater emphasis on how an offender thinks than any of the other major measures of antisocial cognition currently avail- able. Criminal thought process would appear to be at least as vital as criminal thought content in mediating relationships between social and behavioral variables. As such, it is important that it be properly assessed. Second, the PICTS, unlike most other major measures of antisocial cognition, is firmly entrenched in theory. It was originally designed to assess the eight criminal thinking styles believed to serve as the groundwork for criminal behavior in early versions of criminal lifestyle theory (Walters, 1990). Since that time, it has been instrumental in guiding modifications and ad- This article was published Online First August 3, 2015. Glenn D. Walters, Department of Criminal Justice, Kutztown Univer- sity; Christopher T. Lowenkamp, Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Washington, DC. Glenn D. Walters is the author of the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) and has received remuneration from the sale of the PICTS manual in the past. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Glenn D. Walters, Department of Criminal Justice, Kutztown University, 15200 Kutz- town Road, Kutztown, PA 19530-0730. E-mail: walters@kutztown.edu This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Psychological Assessment © 2015 American Psychological Association 2016, Vol. 28, No. 6, 652– 659 1040-3590/16/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pas0000210 652