CRIME AGEING AND PSYCHOMETRICS
Associate Professor Tony Thompson,
My major research interests are in criminal offending, ageing and psychometrics.
Offending doesn’t easily lend itself to an Honours project, but some aspects of crime and
juvenile offending can be suitable for projects at the 4th year level (e.g., attitudes to juvenile
crime and sentencing). One way to give you an idea of potential research projects is to list a
selection of theses I have supervised as well as some of my own publications.
Honours/Post Graduate Diploma Theses
Mental health literacy, masculinity, and attitudes to seeking help among rural/regional men.
(Quantitative study)
Successful ageing: Towards an optimal later life. (Qualitative study)
The psychological research involving Indigenous Australians: Its quantity, culturally-sensitive
content and quality. (Archival study)
Punish or rehabilitate? Attitudes to criminal sanctioning: Psychological and demographic
correlates. (Quantitative study)
Well-being of older Australians: The interplay of life adversity and resilience in late life
development (Quantitative study)
Vocational rehabilitation: Experience and outcomes from the client’s perspective. (Qualitative
study)
Subjective realities of older male farmers: Self-perceptions of ageing and work
(Qualitative study).
Masters
A survey of risk and protective factors among young offender cohorts in Victoria (Quantitative
study).
Illicit drug use, anti-social attitudes and criminal offending (Quantitative study).
Repeated measures of psychological change in residential clients of an alcohol and drug
treatment program (Quantitative study).
Children of divorce: Coping experiences from childhood to adulthood (Qualitative study).
Concurrent validity for dynamic risk factors on the Level of Service Inventory –Revised.
(Quantitative study).
Doctoral
Risk assessment in juvenile justice: Predictive and practical utility. (Qualitative and
quantitative studies).
Extra-familial child abuse: Analysis of briefs of evidence to investigate relationships between
perpetrator and victim characteristics (Qualitative and quantitative study).
Comparison of violent versus non-violent juvenile offenders using structured assessment of
historical and psychosocial risk variables (Quantitative study).
Recent Publications
Gullifer, J., & Thompson, A. P. (in press). Subjective realities of older male farmers:
Self-perceptions of ageing and work. Rural Society.
Feelgood, S., Cortoni, F., & Thompson, A. (2005). Sexual coping, general coping and
cognitive distortions in incarcerated rapists and child molesters. Journal of
Sexual Aggression, 11, 157-170.
Thompson, A. P., & Pope, Z. (2005). Assessing juvenile offenders: Preliminary data
for the Australian Adaptation of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management
Inventory (Hoge & Andrews, 1995). Australian Psychologist, 40, 207- 214.
Thompson, A. P., Lo Bello, S. G., Atkinson, L., Chisholm, V., & Ryan, J, J. (2004).
Brief intelligence testing in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the
United States. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 35, 286-290.
Thompson, A. P. & Putnins, A. L. (2003). Risk-need assessment inventories for
juvenile offenders in Australia. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 10, 324-333
Thompson, A. P. (2003) A survey of brief intelligence testing in Australia. Australian
Psychologist, 38, 62-67.
Thompson, A. P., & Webster, M. (2003). An analysis of psychological forensic
reports for juvenile offenders. Collaborative Research Unit Monograph
Series– Number 3. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia: Department of
Juvenile Justice.