One hundred and twenty male inmates who had been released from a maximum-security inpatient psychiatric unit of a federal penitentiary were followed for an average of 92 months. Seventy-eight percent of the sample were arrested for any offense, and 50% were arrested for a violent offense. An actuarial instrument developed using Nuffield's (1982) method correlated .43 with violent recidivism, resulting in 32% relative improvement over chance. The predictors of violent recidivism in this instrument were the following: juvenile delinquency, younger age at release, drugs involved in offenses, violent convictions, separation from parents before age 16, alcohol involved in offenses, criminal versatility, short periods of employment, and no psychotic illness. These results support those of earlier follow-up studies, in particular, the negative association between psychosis and violent recidivism in high-risk samples and the use of actuarial instruments for appraising the long-term risk of violent recidivism.

Genital self-mutilation is rare, and reports suggest that it is usually associated with psychotic illness. We report a case in which penile self-mutilation was an attempt to commit suicide and justified as a rational action. The literature on genital self-mutilation is reviewed. It is argued that the strong association between genital self-mutilation and psychosis may be the result of selective reporting.

The Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ) is a 72-item, self-report measure designed to predict recidivism, supervision violations, and related behaviors among nonmentally disordered Canadian federal offenders. In the present article, the authors demonstrate that the SAQ maintains satisfactory predictive validity on cross-validation with a high-risk correctional psychiatric sample.

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