Offending Behaviour

Abuse against women is a severe issue that can emerge at any time during peace or conflict. This abuse or violence or crime can occur anywhere-at home, on the street, at work, in jails, etc.-and ranges in severity from very minor teasing to rape and murder. People who are accused of crimes against women rarely actually receive punishment. There are fewer crimes against women reported, and even fewer are prosecuted. Without detailed incidence research, it is difficult to make recommendations for reducing, if not eliminating, such violence. To better understand the mentality of the perpetrators, more study on this violence is critically needed. To create plans to reduce violence, it is necessary to investigate violence in great detail. The accused must receive swift and severe punishment, which would also serve as a deterrent. Any culture that claims to be civilized must reevaluate its claim when half of its citizens lack security.

The present study utilised Bowlby’s Attachment Theory as a starting point to
explore the association between early childhood attachment experiences and the manifestation of paranoid ideation, further investigating the subsequent impact on hostility/aggression within the general population (N=129). This was measured through the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ), The Revised Green et al. Paranoid Thoughts Scale (R-GPTS) and Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ), respectively. The PARQ Father score revealed significant correlations between rejection and physical aggression, as well as indifference/neglect and physical aggression, hostility, and total BPAQ score. Similarly, the PARQ Mother score showed significant positive correlations between maternal rejection and hostility as well as maternal indifference/neglect and hostility, anger, and total BPAQ score. Linear regression analyses further revealed that individual components as well as total score of the PARQ Mother, robustly predicted high score on the RGPTS questionnaire. Comparable findings were observed for the PARQ Father, albeit with lesser predictive strength. When examining the combined predictive power of the total PARQ scores for both parents on total R-GPTS score using multiple regression, Mother's score emerged as a more significant predictor. It is recognised that the current study comes with limitations. The research was conducted on general population which may vary in results or strength when extended to clinical populations (i.e., offenders or forensic patients). Additionally, it is recognised that the study does not specifically extend to same-sex families, adoptive families, different family compositions including single parents or divorced carers, as well as different cultures where parenting styles might be different or divergent from the stereotypical Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Demographic (WEIRD) population. The study’s findings highlight the potential influence of perceived parental behaviours, especially from mothers, on aggression and paranoia outcomes in the sampled, general population. The findings’ ramifications are explored, and recommendations for subsequent studies are proposed.

There is debate about whether the psychopath's criminal behaviour is a consequence of abnormal personality traits or a symptom of psychopathy. The aim of this study was to examine independent associations between offending behaviour over the lifetime and psychopathy in a representative sample of male and female offenders. A two-stage survey was carried out among prisoners in all prisons in England and Wales. Psychopathy was measured using the PCL-R in the second stage among 497 male and female prisoners. Independent relationships between the four factors of psychopathy and lifetime offences were examined using multiple regression. Two models of association were compared to test the effects of the fourth (antisocial) factor. Factor 1 (interpersonal) was not associated with any category of serious offending behaviour. Affective deficiency (Factor 2) was independently associated with violent and acquisitive offending in men. The contribution of the antisocial factor to associations with total PCL-R scores, together with its strong intercorrelations with Factor 3 (lifestyle), suggest that it is an integral component of the psychopathy construct. The findings also demonstrate the dilemma of colinearity between the third and fourth factors of psychopathy and their relationship with criminal behaviour, especially in men.

Previous studies have related mental disorder and antisocial personality disorder to criminal behaviour, but little is known about the associations with other personality disorders. The aim of this study was to examine independent associations between offending behaviour over the lifetime and personality disorder in a representative sample of male and female offenders. A two-stage survey was carried out among prisoners in all prisons in England and Wales. DSM-IV personality disorder was measured using SCID-II in the second stage among 497 male and female prisoners. Independent relationships between personality disorder scores and lifetime offences were examined using multiple regression. Findings demonstrated several independent relationships between personality disorders and offending behaviour. Initial associations observed with Borderline personality disorder were confounded. Strongest associations were found between the conduct disorder and adult antisocial components of Antisocial personality disorder, with no evidence that these were the consequence of the other Axis II disorders. Future research should investigate the functional links between personality disorder and offending behaviour.

According to the rational choice approach, offenders consider costs and benefits when making decisions. This study applies this framework to sexual offenses and examines how various decisions made by perpetrators of sexual crimes influenced the desired and undesired crime outcomes that resulted. Methods: The study examines 2296 crimes of a sexual nature committed by a sample of 898 offenders evaluated at the Massachusetts Treatment Center. Using Generalized Estimating Equations, 23 predictor variables measuring sexually coercive decisions made in each crime about four aspects (who?, when?, where?, and how?) are used to predict ten desired (positive) and seven undesired (negative) crime outcomes for offenders. Results: Results indicated that decisions made by offenders in the context of their sexual crimes were mostly oriented towards the production of immediate positive outcomes and the prevention of immediate negative outcomes, but demonstrated little consideration for non-immediate negative outcomes. Conclusions: Sexual offenders engage in myopic or hyperbolic discounting when making criminal decisions.

While online sex offenders use a wide range of strategies to try to avoid police detection, attempts to avoid detection of child sexual exploitation materials (CSEM) and online sexual solicitation of children have received very little attention. This study aims to understand online sex offenders' behaviors by modeling the factors associated with their use of technological data protection and anonymity preservation strategies. The data is based on a sample of 199 men involved in crimes related to the use of child pornography or sexual solicitation of minors online. The analytical strategy based on the use of an artificial neural network (ANN), a machine-learning system, identified two trends. First, those who displayed problematic substance use and sexual thoughts and fantasies as well as behaviors reported to be preoccupying did not use specific strategies to avoid police detection. Second, two combinations of factors predict use of police anti-detection strategy, suggesting that the criminal expertise of online sex offenders is manifested in two different patterns: those building on existing knowledge, and those learning skills through previous judicial experience.

Although there has been considerable variation in the application of expertise to offending populations, one aspect that is widely agreed upon is that expertise is best represented on a continuum from novice to expert. The present study, therefore, investigated criminal expertise in 877 hybrid offenses that involve sexual assault and robbery (i.e., sexual robbery) or burglary (i.e., sexual burglary). Specifically, we analyzed the crime-commission processes of both these offenses using latent class analyses to determine the heterogeneity of criminal expertise among each domain. Results showed an expert to novice continuum in both domains, including a “domain-specific” expert sexual burglary subgroup who was characterized by a high degree of offense-related competencies relevant to sexual burglary. We also found an expert subgroup in sexual robbery who had more general skills (i.e., overlapping expertise) relevant to violent offending. Implications for offender decision-making, treatm...

The concept of expertise applied to the criminal context assumes that offenders are driven by the abilities to both maximize the payoffs and minimize the risks associated with the crime-commission. This study tested the articulation between these two types of decisions taken by stranger rapists to successfully commit their crime. Specifically, this study aims to identify whether offenders whose modus operandi is indicative of criminal expertise are more likely to use forensic awareness strategies. Multivariate analyses conducted on 1,551 cases showed that stranger rapists who adopted behaviors indicative of expertise were more likely to use forensic awareness strategies to decrease the risk of police detection. Mixed associations were found between the number of forensic awareness strategies and their nature (i.e., protecting identity vs. destroying evidence) and rapists’ expertise, thus leading to a four-type theoretical classification of expertise: novice, bold, opportunistic, and...

Previous studies have related mental disorder and antisocial personality disorder to criminal behaviour, but little is known about the associations with other personality disorders. The aim of this study was to examine independent associations between offending behaviour over the lifetime and personality disorder in a representative sample of male and female offenders. A two-stage survey was carried out among prisoners in all prisons in England and Wales. DSM-IV personality disorder was measured using SCID-II in the second stage among 497 male and female prisoners. Independent relationships between personality disorder scores and lifetime offences were examined using multiple regression. Findings demonstrated several independent relationships between personality disorders and offending behaviour. Initial associations observed with Borderline personality disorder were confounded. Strongest associations were found between the conduct disorder and adult antisocial components of Antisocial personality disorder, with no evidence that these were the consequence of the other Axis II disorders. Future research should investigate the functional links between personality disorder and offending behaviour.

There is debate about whether the psychopath's criminal behaviour is a consequence of abnormal personality traits or a symptom of psychopathy. The aim of this study was to examine independent associations between offending behaviour over the lifetime and psychopathy in a representative sample of male and female offenders. A two-stage survey was carried out among prisoners in all prisons in England and Wales. Psychopathy was measured using the PCL-R in the second stage among 497 male and female prisoners. Independent relationships between the four factors of psychopathy and lifetime offences were examined using multiple regression. Two models of association were compared to test the effects of the fourth (antisocial) factor. Factor 1 (interpersonal) was not associated with any category of serious offending behaviour. Affective deficiency (Factor 2) was independently associated with violent and acquisitive offending in men. The contribution of the antisocial factor to associations with total PCL-R scores, together with its strong intercorrelations with Factor 3 (lifestyle), suggest that it is an integral component of the psychopathy construct. The findings also demonstrate the dilemma of colinearity between the third and fourth factors of psychopathy and their relationship with criminal behaviour, especially in men.

Aims: The aim of this research is to evaluate a seven week abstinence-based drug treatment programme and to use this to assist policy makers in the planning and provision of future programmes. Methods: Design: Seventy-nine clients were interviewed at two stages. Stage I, prior to the treatment programme, stage II, immediately after the treatment programme. A selected group of 20 clients were followed-up and interviewed at stage III, up to 24 months after the treatment programme. Setting: All clients were prisoners at Mountjoy Prison, Dublin Ireland. Participants: Seventy-nine male prisoners were recruited. A sample of 20 of the original cohort of 79 was selected using a snowball sampling method approximately 24 months following treatment. This latter sample of 20 clients consisted of eight prisoners who had re-offended and returned to prison, three prisoners who were still in prison serving their original sentence and nine prisoners who were out of prison. These 20 also participated...

In this introductory article we begin by setting out the aims of this special issue, including: why the expertise paradigm may prove fruitful in understanding the proximal processes surrounding cognition, emotion and behavior at the scene of the crime; and to draw together strands of an emerging field at this important time in its development. We then go on to outline what we see as the key components of perceptual and procedural expertise as defined in mainstream cognitive psychology. We then review strands of complementary knowledge from allied fields in cognitive science that have developed in parallel and lend support for core basic elements of expertise. Adopting the notion that expertise is on a continuum and that most individuals will not reach the extreme end of competence, we describe a model of functional expertise which most people could achieve with practice. Finally, we then discuss 'dysfunctional expertise' that offenders might display through practice in a particular criminal domain and consider how this might enhance our understanding and prevention of criminal behavior.

Research conducted on criminal expertise contends that offenders obtain specialist knowledge and skills relevant to their domain, and that the successful execution of knowledge and skills is a function of learning and experience. Some child sexual offenders possess domain-relevant competencies such as in the selection and manipulation of victims, decision-making and problem-solving, and eluding detection; these competencies and areas of skill contribute to their sexual offending. In this paper, we first examine Ward's (1999) original application of the concept of expertise to sexual offenders and briefly overview his theory. Second, Bourke, Ward, and Rose's (2012) empirical investigation of Ward's theory with sexual offenders is reviewed and the resulting expertise model is described in detail. Third, theory and research on self-regulation patterns and modus operandi in child sexual offenders are reviewed and its links with expertise are highlighted. Finally, the practice implications of an expertise perspective are discussed.

In this final article, we note how the expertise paradigm has allowed us to assess the psychological processes involved in experienced decision-making in a relatively precise and micro-analytical way, in both deviant and non deviant contexts. We note that expert decision-making involves the increasingly fast and automatic recognition, over time and repeated exposure, of environmental cues relevant to a domain of expertise. In turn, these cues trigger a range of routine and habitual behavioral scripts, rapidly and unconsciously chosen from mental schemas rich with information about what has worked in the past, and which is responsive to changing environments. All of the reviews in this special issue have Running head: THEMES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH found evidence suggesting these processes are at work in the mind of the offender within the crime facilitative environments. We note the continuum of expertise in offenders redolent of expertise in general, and highlight the idea of encouraging offenders to use expertise related skills such as enhanced problem solving, in pro-social ways. We note the significant gaps in knowledge that this issue has illuminated in relation to practice, consciousness and individual differences, and suggest that research using simulations may make a considerable contribution to understanding offending behavior.

This project examined the two main questions of why and when behaviors change. In the course of five studies, four aims were addressed. The first, a first step to why behaviors change, was to determine whether the behavioral subtypes of control, sex, and violence could differentiate offenses within the elements of a crime (e.g. the offender, victim, and situation. The second, a first step to when behaviors change, was to similarly determine whether the behavioral subtypes of control, sex, and violence could differentiate offenses within the temporal phases of a crime (e.g. before, during, and after the crime). The third aim was to determine which behaviors to use as the basis of the proposed three ways to examine behavioral consistency. Finally, the last was to use behavioral trajectories to explore patterns of (e.g. when) and possible explanations for (e.g. why) behavioral change. Multiple techniques of multidimensional scaling as well as behavioral trajectories were used. Results ...

The effectiveness of women's resistance strategies for reducing the severity of sexual abuse and physical injury during sexual assaults was analyzed in a variety of assault circumstances. Data were obtained from police reports and court testimonies of 274 women (96% White, 4% Black) who either were raped or avoided rape by subsequently incarcerated violent stranger rapists. Statistical analyses showed that particular resistance strategies were effective in specific situations. Women who fought back forcefully were more likely to avoid rape than women who did not fight back, regardless of whether a weapon was present. Forceful fighting resistance was related to increased physical injury when a weapon was present, but most physical injury was caused by nonlethal weapons. Women who screamed or fled when confronted with weapons experienced less severe sexual abuse. Increased physical injury was associated with pleading, crying, or reasoning indoors. Women who used drugs or alcohol e...

In this final article, we note how the expertise paradigm has allowed us to assess the psychological processes involved in experienced decision-making in a relatively precise and micro-analytical way, in both deviant and non deviant contexts. We note that expert decision-making involves the increasingly fast and automatic recognition, over time and repeated exposure, of environmental cues relevant to a domain of expertise. In turn, these cues trigger a range of routine and habitual behavioral scripts, rapidly and unconsciously chosen from mental schemas rich with information about what has worked in the past, and which is responsive to changing environments. All of the reviews in this special issue have

In the field of offender corrections, a preoccupation with risk prediction has come at the expense of explanation, and an overemphasis on risk factors has come at the expense of understanding protective factors. Some strides have been made in describing and categorising the types of factors that protect young people from a life of crime, or promote competencies and potentials that help them avoid it altogether. We argue, however, that like the field of dynamic risk factors, we know very little about the nature and function of these features, beyond describing them. The article describes theory and research associated with expertise and its qualities and value as both a risk and a protective factor in the prevention of crime. It draws from literature in forensic psychology, criminology, resilience and neuroscience.

Research conducted on criminal expertise contends that offenders obtain specialist knowledge and skills relevant to their domain, and that the successful execution of knowledge and skills is a function of learning and experience. Some child sexual offenders possess domain-relevant competencies such as in the selection and manipulation of victims, decision-making and problem-solving, and eluding detection; these competencies and areas of skill contribute to their sexual offending. In this paper, we first examine Ward's (1999) original application of the concept of expertise to sexual offenders and briefly overview his theory. Second, Bourke, Ward, and Rose's (2012) empirical investigation of Ward's theory with sexual offenders is reviewed and the resulting expertise model is described in detail. Third, theory and research on self-regulation patterns and modus operandi in child sexual offenders are reviewed and its links with expertise are highlighted. Finally, the practice implications of an expertise perspective are discussed.