The study sample consisted of 159 male public offenders who were admitted to 1 prison system during a consecutive 3-month period. All were convicted of a felony, were at least 17 years old, and gave permission for testing. Each prisoner was given the Clinical Analysis Questionnaire (CAQ) and the What I Think and Feel (WITF) test at the time of admission to prison. The CAQ consists of two parts: the first measures basic personality traits; the second consists of items developed on the basis of reported clinical symptoms. The WITF, a measure of anxiety, also contains a lie scale that is basically a report of the participant's need for social desirability or level of defensiveness. The participants' scores on the clinical symptoms portion of the CAQ were at or below the mean, suggesting a lower than average incidence of pathological symptoms. For the personality traits measured by the CAQ, these offenders scored low on tension and on insecurity. Because the participants reported a low level of anxiety, the results on the WITF are somewhat similar; offenders' scores reflected low anxiety and average social desirability. Thus, the evidence suggests the absence of a 'criminal personality' that is a separate and distinct type of personality. Two tables and 19 references are included.