There was a significant study which found higher rates of psychopathy (judged using standard psychometric scales devised by Hare et al) in high-level corporate environments than among violent criminals in prison.
I don't expect you to believe me on this one, so I am furiously trying to find a reference... Hopefully I'll be back to edit with a link.
EDIT: There is of course this book, written by the aforementioned Dr Hare, but still can't seem to find a paper. I remember seeing it in a recent BBC documentary on the subject, which interviewed him directly, which isn't exactly helpful.
"In this study, we had a unique opportunity to examine psychopathy and its correlates in a sample of 203 corporate professionals selected by their companies to participate in management development programs. The correlates included demographic and status variables, as well as in-house 360° assessments and performance ratings. The prevalence of psychopathic traits—as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist—Revised (PCL-R) and a Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL: SV) “equivalent”—was higher than that found in community samples. The results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that the underlying latent structure of psychopathy in our corporate sample was consistent with that model found in community and offender studies. Psychopathy was positively associated with in-house ratings of charisma/presentation style (creativity, good strategic thinking and communication skills) but negatively associated with ratings of responsibility/performance (being a team player, management skills, and overall accomplishments)"
Looks like I misremembered the bit about a higher rate than in prisons, instead it is rather a significantly higher rate than in society at large.
Another view could be that the psychopathic behavior may get you fired in a corporate setting and gunned down in a criminal one, so it may be simply that psychopaths last longer in non-violent areas of society.
I guess that would be corrected for in the above-mentioned "The correlates included demographic and status variables" ? Lifespan is objective so rather easy to correct for.
That's assuming you could account for the rate of psychopathy among those criminals who died before they could be tested for it as well as those who died before they were caught as criminals. Lifespan will also probably be different for criminals on the streets vs. inside prison, so I'm not sure you could simply adjust for that.
The original commenter amended his post to say that he mis-remembered about it being higher than in prisons, anyway.
I don't expect you to believe me on this one, so I am furiously trying to find a reference... Hopefully I'll be back to edit with a link.
EDIT: There is of course this book, written by the aforementioned Dr Hare, but still can't seem to find a paper. I remember seeing it in a recent BBC documentary on the subject, which interviewed him directly, which isn't exactly helpful.
http://books.google.com/books?id=xfIEVtzj52YC
EDIT: AHA! Here it is: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bsl.925/pdf
"In this study, we had a unique opportunity to examine psychopathy and its correlates in a sample of 203 corporate professionals selected by their companies to participate in management development programs. The correlates included demographic and status variables, as well as in-house 360° assessments and performance ratings. The prevalence of psychopathic traits—as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist—Revised (PCL-R) and a Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL: SV) “equivalent”—was higher than that found in community samples. The results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that the underlying latent structure of psychopathy in our corporate sample was consistent with that model found in community and offender studies. Psychopathy was positively associated with in-house ratings of charisma/presentation style (creativity, good strategic thinking and communication skills) but negatively associated with ratings of responsibility/performance (being a team player, management skills, and overall accomplishments)"
Looks like I misremembered the bit about a higher rate than in prisons, instead it is rather a significantly higher rate than in society at large.