Factorial Structure and Predictive Validity of the PCL-R in an Austrian Sexual Offender Population

The revised version of Robert D. Hare's Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R) is becoming increasingly significant in the risk assessment of sexual and violent offenders. Nevertheless, the factorial structure of the instrument still remains unclear. The aim of the present study is to examine which of the internationally proposed factor models provides the best fit to data collected in a sample of 803 male sexual offenders who were assessed during their imprisonment in Austria. In a next step, in a subsample of 540 sexual offenders, the predictive accuracy of the individual components of psychopathy specified in the diverse factor models for violent and sexual recidivism was comparatively evaluated. The results of both analyses favour the 4-facets structure suggested by Neumann and colleagues.