Purpose The Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles ( PICTS) has been applied extensively to the study of criminal behaviour and cognition.
This study aimed to explore the psychometric characteristics (factorial structure, reliability, and external validity) of an Arabic version of the PICTS, to explore cross-cultural differences between a sample of Middle Eastern ( Egyptian) prisoners and Western prison samples, and to examine the influence of type of crime on criminal thinking styles. Method A group of 130 Egyptian male prisoners who had been sentenced for theft, drug dealing, or murder completed the PICTS. Their scores were compared with the reported data of American, British, and Dutch prisoners.