[Moral judgment and prediction of criminality. Comparative study of delinquents and non-delinquents]

Abstract

A group of imprisoned criminals was compared to two groups of not-criminals with regard to five modes of judgment (profile of judgment) measured by Baruk's Tsedek test. The delinquents use more self-interest judgment, social judgment and absence of judgment that the whole of the not-delinquents (significantly different). They more often use the mode of moral judgment than the not-delinquents of the control group (general population) but less often than the not-delinquents of the comparative group (subjects of high educational level and religious for more than half of them). From the profile of judgment obtained for each group, a formula of prediction of tendency to crime was elaborated. It makes it possible to classify with rather good reliability the persons tested in the category of criminals or not-criminals.