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Cruelty has often been understood as the result of incurable bad character by those able to distinguish right from wrong. Recent research suggests a way of thinking about it as a form of disability in which people are unable to learn empathy, cognitive social skills and associated behaviour, which qualifies it as a form of learning disability. It is suggested that accepting this classification opens up the possibility that selected interventions might be successful in enabling people to understand, practise and appreciate affiliative behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to consider oxytocin as a treatment for children diagnosed with callous unemotional [CU] traits, emotion regulation and whether moral disability is a meaningful category.

The paper discusses the relationship between psychiatric diagnoses, moral opprobrium and disability in relation to emotion regulation and diagnoses of callous unemotional conduct disorder (CUCD) and psychopathy, together with current research on oxytocin in humans.

Diagnoses of callous unemotional traits and psychopathy are problematic as a result of inbuilt moral opprobrium, while treating CUCD with oxytocin to promote prosociality through mandating a moral feeling brain oversimplifies how this neuropeptide operates in humans.

Oxytocin is currently under trial as a treatment for behavioural variant fronto‐temporal dementia, where patients display symptoms similar to those diagnosed with CUCD. As genetic, environmental and ethnic factors affect oxytocin's effects in humans, caution is warranted before supporting its use to treat CUCD. Moreover, such use may represent a reductionist technofix compared with addressing socioeconomic factors promoting the manifestation of CU traits as an adaptation.

This study aims to builds upon the hypothesis that “gang” offenders have greater mental health vulnerabilities than both the offender and the general population. This study aims to determine whether there is a difference between the mental health difficulties experienced by young people who may be committing offenses or who may be non-offenders while exploring the interplay of conduct disorder (CD).

Secondary data analysis was conducted of a cross-sectional survey of 449 young people in two secondary schools and the data was compared to the scores on the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ). A diagnosis of CD was given to the respondents scoring “abnormal” for conduct on the SDQ and the findings were compared to the total difficulties score of those without a diagnosis of CD.

Those committing offenses both alone and within a group setting had significantly higher scores across all domains of the SDQ, indicating the prevalence of inattention and hyperactivity, emotional problems, lower prosocial behaviors and peer problems over other offending groups. The total difficulties scores on the SDQ were significantly higher for the offending groups that had a diagnosis of CD.

The results suggest that offending patterns are included within the screening for CD subtypes and support the need for further research into tailored interventions that involve multi-agency collaboration. This research offers a new approach to the identification of severe CD with callous and unemotional traits by examining offensive behavior.

That psychopathy imposes substantial societal costs and economic burden is axiomatic, but monetization studies have overlooked cost estimates of the disorder. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Drawing on a near census of institutionalized delinquents from Missouri, the current study devised new crime cost measures for self-reported offending.

Youth imposed $30 million in total costs annually in large part due to extensive involvement in robbery, theft, and assault. The most criminally active youth imposed costs in excess of $700 million. Psychopathy features were differentially correlated with crime costs. APSD-SR callous-unemotional traits, mPPI-SF Blame Externalization, mPPI-SF Machiavellian Egocentricity, and mPPI-SF Social Potency were significantly associated with between four and five crime costs. Psychopathic traits associated with ruthless self-interest, callousness, and expectations to control and dominate others manifest in diverse ways including serious violence and repeated property crime. Other features such as mPPI-SF Impulsive Nonconformity, mPPI-SF Stress Immunity, mPPI-SF Coldheartedness, mPPI-SF Carefree Nonplanfulness, mPPI-SF Fearlessness, APSD-SR Impulsivity, and APSD-SR Narcissism had limited associations with crime costs.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first monetization study to quantify the effects of assorted psychopathy features on crime costs.

The most frequent type of citizen complaint filed against police officers involves how the officer uses interpersonal communication. The most common context of police‐citizen contact is the traffic stop, and verbal judo is the most widely used police training program in interpersonal communication intended to reduce citizen complaints and improve citizen cooperation. However, does verbal judo meet citizen expectations for appropriate traffic stop behavior? In order to determine what communication behaviors citizens view as appropriate during traffic stops, a sample of 245 college students were surveyed about their preferences with regard to the officers' behavior. The responses of the sample support the use of verbal judo techniques during routine traffic stops. The responses also demonstrated support for the theory of procedural justice.

Examines gender differences in occupational stress and coping strategies among information technology (IT) personnel in Singapore. Data were collected via a combination of mail surveys and semi‐structured interviews. Analyses results of the survey using analysis of covariance procedures. Female IT personnel reported significantly higher scores on sources of stress originating from “factors intrinsic to the job”, “managerial role”, “career and achievement”, “organizational structure and climate”, and “relationships with others”. Contrary to initial prediction, no significant gender difference was found for stress originating from “home‐work interface”. With respect to coping strategies, female IT personnel tend to seek social support and talk to others when they experience stress, while men tend to suppress their emotions and deal with problems in a logical and unemotional manner. Discusses implications of findings.

Purpose – We use data from the United States and Finland, a literature review, and historical analysis to understand the concept and role of cool within global consumer culture.

Methodology/approach – This is a conceptual review and qualitative analysis of data from depth interviews, journals, and online discussion groups in two U.S. locations and one Finnish location.

Findings – Cool is a slang word connoting a certain style that involves masking and hiding emotions. As cool diffuses we find that it is both distilled and diluted. The concept itself has also evolved. What was once a low-profile means of survival and later a youthful rebellious alternative to class-based status systems has become commoditized.

Research limitations/implications – The study has been conducted in two cultures with a limited range of ages thought to be most susceptible to the appeal of being cool.

Practical limitations/implications – Marketers may not yet have exploited cool as effectively as they have exploited sex, but mainstream consumers now look for cool in the marketplace more than within themselves. The result is a continuous race to offer the next cool thing.

Originality/value of chapter – It is argued that coolness is a new status system largely replacing social class, especially among the young.

Recent developments in the psychometric assessment of youth psychopathic traits suggest that the inclusion of a conduct disorder (CD) factor to the traditional three factors of the psychopathy construct may improve the incremental validity of these measures. The purpose of the current study is to examine whether the addition of a CD factor incrementally improves the ability of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory Short version (YPI-S) to predict criminal recidivism.

A longitudinal quantitative research design was used with a sample detained male youth (N = 214, M_age = 16.4 years, SD_age = 1.3 years).

Results using the area under the curve analysis suggest that the inclusion of a CD factor slightly improves the capacity of the YPI-S to predict one-year general criminal recidivism, but it does not significantly increase its capacity to predict violent criminal recidivism. Results also indicate that a CD scale outperforms the YPI-S, even with an additional CD factor included, in terms of predicting one-year general and violent recidivism.

Self-reported youth psychopathic trait measures, even those that include a CD factor as a fourth factor, should be used with caution when the aim is to predict youth criminal recidivism.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study using a self-reported youth psychopathic traits measure with a CD factor to examine youth criminal recidivism.

Individuals with diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) within criminal justice settings are a highly heterogeneous group. Although studies have examined differences between those with and without ASD in such settings, there has been no examination of differences within the ASD group. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Drawing on the findings of a service evaluation project, this paper introduces a typology of ASD within forensic mental health and intellectual disability settings.

The eight subtypes that are described draw on clinical variables including psychopathy, psychosis and intensity/frequency of problem behaviours that co-occur with the ASD. The initial assessment of inter-rater reliability on the current version of the typology revealed excellent agreement, multirater Kfree =0.90.

The proposed typology could improve understanding of the relationship between ASD and forensic risk, identify the most appropriate interventions and provide prognostic information about length of stay. Further research to refine and validate the typology is ongoing.

This paper introduces a novel, typology-based approach which aims to better serve people with ASD within criminal justice settings.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how first-time offenders and habitual criminals, while displaying wide differences in offense frequency, appear to follow a similar pattern in committing crime.

A conceptual approach is adopted in this paper.

It is argued that criminal thinking is the common denominator in both patterns, the difference being that habitual criminals have a higher resting level of proactive and reactive criminal thinking than first-time offenders. With an earlier age of onset, the habitual criminal may be more impulsive and reactive than first-time offenders, which partially explains why most low-rate offenders are not identified until adulthood.

Because actual and perceived deterrents to crime correlate weakly, if at all, it is recommended that perceived environmental events and criminal thinking be the primary targets of prevention and intervention programs.

Environmental stimuli, such as events that produce general strain, increase opportunities for crime, reinforce criminal associations, irritate the individual and interfere with the deterrent effect of perceived certainty, can both augment and interact with criminal thinking to increase the likelihood of a criminal act in both first-time offenders and habitual criminals.

The unique aspect of this paper is that it illustrates that certain features of crime and criminality are found across offending levels, whereas other features are more specific to a particular level.