Maladaptive personality domains and crime related characteristics among convicts incarcerated in central jails of Pakistan

Purpose This study aims to differentiate maladaptive personality domains through crime-related characteristics among convicts incarcerated in central jails of Punjab (CJP). In total, 552 respondents were taken from nine CJP. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through the Personality Inventory for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-5 Short Form (PID-5 SF) (Maples et al., 2015), and forced-choice questions were designed to measure crime-related characteristics. Findings Confirmatory factor analysis showed that PID-5 SF exhibited a good to excellent construct validity based on the DSM-5 criteria of using three facets to measure a domain (APA, 2013). Multivariate analysis showed that convicts who have committed different crime types and have criminal records exhibit different personality domains. Originality/value In addition to the literature, the data from all CJP, Pakistan, was collected and tested so that need for personality-oriented intervention could be identified for the prison setting. This also highlights that the usefulness of PID-5 SF is not only in identifying maladaptive personality among incarcerated convicts but also in differentiating between different crime-related characteristics.