The Development of the Prison Behavior Rating Scale

Abstract

The level of psychological disturbance among prisoners is increasing. Prisoners and prison managers can benefit from the systematic measurement of the rate and nature of disturbance in the prison population. This article describes the development of a rating procedure to measure disturbed behavior. Principal component analysis of ratings on 890 prisoners resulted in the development of three scales measuring antiauthority, anxious-depressed, and dull-confused behavior. Evidence of reliability and validity is presented, and advantages of this approach over other classification systems are discussed.