As I understand it, psychopathic traits are very good for getting what you want in the short term. If this author’s interview subjects had appreciated the long-term consequences of their antisocial behavior, they wouldn’t be behind bars.
The violent ones are the lower class of psychopaths, and most prisoners aren't psychopaths. The smarter, high-class psychopaths are the corporate back-stabbers. They learn how to "manage up" because the ROI is so high.
"In a typical prison population, about 20 percent of the inmates satisfy the Hare definition of a psychopath, but they are responsible for over half of all violent crime."
http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html
Your claim is true but it is an oversimplification. There is at least a factor of ten over representation, since 1-2% of the total population are psychopaths.
Edit: Considering the large incarceration rates in the USA (more than 1% of the adult population), 10-20% of the total number of psychopaths should be in prison there... Oh my!
Edit 2: Consider 50% of all violent crime committed by 1-2% of the population... Everything else pales.
Many HN posters (including myself) have a genetic trait that makes them about 10 times as likely to commit a violent crime: the Y chromosome.