Search results

Social cognition is a prominent feature of explanations of crime, particularly violent crime. This paper aims to report a study that compared several aspects of the social cognition of convicted violent and non‐violent offenders.

Measures of social cognition were administered to 156 offenders, classified as violent and non‐violent according to index offence.

Analysis showed few significant differences between the violent and non‐violent offenders, although differences in thinking styles and social problem solving strategies were evident between high‐risk and low‐risk violent offenders.

The differences between high‐risk and lower risk violent offenders suggests that not all violent offenders function at the same level and so more precision is required in classifying offenders.

Purpose – The consumption of violent media contents has been discussed as a risk factor for school shootings repeatedly. The results of research on U.S.-American offenders support this notion. However, to date only little is known about the extent to which these findings may be transferred and generalized to perpetrators from other countries.

Method – We analyzed the case files on seven school shootings perpetrated in Germany between 1999 and 2006.

Findings – In five cases, detailed qualitative content analyses revealed a marked interest in media violence during the years prior to the offense. In some cases, the media consumption slowly replaced other leisure activities, focussed on topics related to the offenses as killing sprees or former school shootings, and was partly described as being addictive. One offender even utilized the media for his own purposes in order to present himself postmortem. However, two perpetrators did not show any peculiar interest in media violence.

Practical and social implications – Violent media consumption is no necessary condition for school shootings, but seems to promote the development toward an offense under certain circumstances. Therefore, intensive media consumption, especially if thematically related to an offense, should be taken seriously and considered in prevention and intervention efforts.

Originality/value of chapter – The findings add to the literature on risk factors for school shootings with regard to violent media consumption. The subject is analyzed in detail in a sample of German offenders, thereby widening the scope of analyzed school shootings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine temperament differences, notably effortful control and negative emotionality, and correlates that distinguish between homicide, violent sexual and other violent juvenile offenders. Exploring heterogeneity among violent offenders is relevant to intervention strategies and policy implications.

Demographic measures, temperament constructs and individual risk factor indicators were assessed across 30,303 violent juvenile offenders (including 397 homicide offenders) in Florida to assess their ability to distinguish among violent juvenile offender subgroups.

Analyses demonstrated temperament constructs distinguish among classifications of violent juvenile offenders with effortful control differentiating homicide and violent sexual offenders from other violent offenders, and negative emotionality distinguishing violent sexual from other violent offenders, with youth having greater negative emotionality and less effortful control being non-sexual violent offenders. Homicide offenders were more likely to be older, male and had histories of gang membership and weapon/firearm offending than other violent offenders, and evidenced greater negative emotionality than violent sexual offenders.

The differences across violent youthful offender subtypes suggest heterogeneity among violent offenders with distinct correlates more predictive of some subtypes than others. Additionally, the temperament constructs of effortful control and negative emotionality are useful in distinguishing violent offender subtypes, which points toward differing intervention/treatment strategies.

The prevalence of diabetes among 915 sexual, violent, and non‐violent non‐sex offenders was found to be more than twice the prevalence in the general population. Diabetes was most common among violent offenders and among sex offenders who victimized children. The older diabetics presented significantly more often with cognitive impairment and younger diabetics more often with manic and psychotic symptoms. Younger diabetics were significantly more likely to use force and a weapon in their offenses and were most likely to injure their victims when compared to older diabetics and younger and older non‐diabetic offenders. In more than one in four cases, the diabetes was undiagnosed at the time of their offenses prior to clinical assessment, suggesting that undiagnosed diabetes may be a possible mitigating factor in some sexual and violent offenses. Results indicate that a routine endocrine evaluation with blood tests would be a valuable addition to the assessment of violent and sexual offenders.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of a variety of developmental factors on sexual homicide offenders (SHOs), while taking into account other components of sexual homicide theoretical models.

A series of logistic regression models are performed using a total of 616 incarcerated adult male sexual offenders from Canada to distinguish between three groups of sexual offenders, SHOs, violent non-homicidal sex offenders (NHSOs) and NHSOs.

Results indicate that contrary to theoretical models, experiences of victimization are not central to the development of SHOs. Instead, it is the adoption of various problematic behaviors in childhood that appear as most important in the etiology of this particular type of sexual crime. This suggests that the various existing theoretical models of sexual homicide need to be revised and/or tested with additional empirical data.

This is the first study to look at developmental factors using two control groups of NHSOs and violent NHSOs.

The prevalence of thyroid abnormalities among 831 sexual, violent, and non‐violent non‐sex offenders was found to be greater than found in the general population. Thyroid abnormalities were most common among violent offenders and among sex offenders who victimized children. Thyroid disorders were associated with psychotic diagnoses, delusions, mania, suicidal thoughts, and showed a trend to more suicide attempts. These disorders were undiagnosed in 49.1% of the cases prior to the present clinical assessment. Of these, 59.3% faced their first criminal charges, and the undiagnosed thyroid abnormalities may be important in the offenders’ treatment and may be possible legal mitigating factors in some offenses. Results indicate that a routine endocrine evaluation with blood tests would be a valuable addition to the assessment of violent and sexual offenders.

This paper aims to provide a critical review of the psychopathy literature, with a particular focus on recent research examining the relationship between psychopathy and various forms of criminal behaviour.

The authors provide an overview of the studies conducted to date. To identify relevant published studies for this review, literature searches were completed using Web of Science, Scopus, PsychINFO, and PubMed.

Substantial empirical research exists to suggest that psychopathy is a robust predictor of criminal behaviour and recidivism. Furthermore, considerable support for the assertion that the violence perpetrated by psychopathic offenders is more instrumental than the violence committed by other offenders was found. In addition, some research suggests that the greater use of instrumental violence among psychopathic offenders may be due to the interpersonal/affective traits of psychopathy, and not the impulsive/antisocial traits.

The current paper is the first to provide an in‐depth review of the literature examining the association between psychopathy and criminal offending with a particular focus on violent and homicidal behaviour.

This study aims to explore whether female psychiatric homicide offenders form a distinct group when compared to women who have committed other types of serious violent offences.

A range of background and psychological characteristics for 13 homicide and 13 non‐homicide offenders, matched by date of birth, were compared. In addition, change in psychological and behavioural presentation after 12 months stay at a registered charity trust hospital in England was considered.

The findings indicate that the two groups were broadly similar, although the non‐homicide violent offenders had somewhat more troubled backgrounds. The two groups responded similarly to treatment, although the homicide offenders displayed significantly fewer aggressive risk behaviours whilst in care.

It is concluded that the two groups present with similar needs, with indications of greater treatment need for polynomial substance misuse for the non‐homicide group.

This is the first study to compare directly these two specific groups of violent female offenders, considering both static background variables, and behaviour whilst in security.

The purpose of this paper is to determine recidivism costs and benefits for 1,030 community-based male offenders enrolled in a domestic abuse program (DAP) compared to an untreated control group (n=1,030) matched on risk factors.

The study time frame was October 1, 2007-June 30, 2010 with reconvictions measured to December 31, 2010. Follow up averaged 19 months. Controls received standard community supervision, but no domestic violence group interventions. Follow up measures included court costs for violent and non-violent reconvictions; re-incarcerations and community-based orders costs measured in days.

Adjusting for time at risk, DAP enrollees had 29 percent fewer reconvictions, 46 percent fewer violent reconvictions, 34 percent fewer custodial days, but 23 percent more days on community orders. Costs: DAP enrollment avoided $2.52 M in custodial costs, but higher community correction costs (+$773 K) and court costs (+$5.8 K), reducing the DAP’s criminal justice system cost savings to $1.754 M ($8.92 M for the DAP group compared to $10.67M for controls). Cost benefits: when the 64 DAP program costs were deducted ($602 K), the net benefit to the New South Wales criminal justice system was $1,141 M, or $1,108 per enrollee, providing a net benefit/cost ratio of 2.89. If the DAP was completed, the net benefit was $1,820 per offender. These results compares favorably to economic evaluations of other community-based interventions.

Group interventions for domestically violent (DV) offenders can provide good investment returns to tax payers and government by reducing demand on scarce criminal justice system resources. The study provides insights into justice costs for DV offenders; a methodological template to determine cost benefits for offender programs and a contribution to cost-effective evidence-based crime reduction interventions.

Using a rigorous methodology, official court, custodial and community correction services costing data, this is the first Australian cost benefit analysis of a domestic violence group intervention, and the first to justify program expenditure by demonstrating substantial savings to the criminal justice system.

This study aims to investigate the predictive validity of self‐control (SC) for several forms of criminal recidivism (general, property, violence, sexual).

In total, 1,838 male prisoners were interviewed while serving a prison sentence. Personality traits known to be related to SC served as operationalization of SC. Cluster analyses identified three clusters of SC‐related traits: Emotion regulation, Self‐assertion, and Effortful control. Survival‐analyses predicted recidivism, which was assessed using official data. The follow up period amounted to 72 months.

The SC‐related trait clusters significantly predicted general and violent reoffending, after controlling for established risk factors for recidivism (age, age at first offense, social status, previous youth detention, out‐of‐home placements, and length of imprisonment). However, trait clusters did not predict reoffending with a property offense. Offenders with violent or sex offenses in their criminal history showed different profiles on the trait clusters.

The paper shows that SC is an important risk factor for violent recidivism. SC‐related trait clusters should not be combined to form a single score, because essential information for risk profiles would be lost.