Personal Dispositions Toward Criminal Recidivism in a Sample of Institutionalized Adolescents
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47152/ziksi201202174Keywords:
criminal recidivism, adolescents, Big Five model, psychopathy, Amorality, DisintegrationAbstract
This study represented an attempt to identify the personality traits that predict a stable criminal behaviour in adolescence. The study included 58 subjects who were serving a correctional sentence in the Education and Correctional Home in Krusevac. Subjects were aged between 15 and 22 years, and the average age of respondents was 18.7 years (σ = 1.7). Respondents were given self-assessment questionnaires that measured: personality traits from the "Big Five" model, Disintegration, Amorality and psychopathy. Recidivism was operationalised in two ways: by the number of offences and the number of correctional treatments the individual had undergone.
Predicting recidivism was done by using hierarchical regression analysis. The results show that low Agreeableness (β = -0.34, p < 0.05) from the Big Five model successfully predicted the number of criminal offences. But it lost predictive ability when psychopathy and Amorality were introduced in the model: Amorality induced by impulsivity (β = 0.65, p < 0.01) and manipulation (β = 0.60, p < 0.01) became the dominant predictors. When the number of corrective treatments that have been imposed on respondents was set as a criterion measure, the low Extraversion from the Big Five model became a significant predictor (β = -0.48, p < 0.01), and Amorality induced by brutality joined it in the next level of regression (β = 0.73, p < 0.01). The results show similarities with the findings obtained on samples of adult subjects. However, the only difference was that the behavioural psychopathy factor had no role in the prediction, which is usually the case in similar empirical studies.
References
Andrews, D. A., Bonta, J., & Wormith, J. S. (2006). The recent past and near future of risk and/or need assessment. Crime & Delinquency, 52, 7–27. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128705281756
Blom, G. (1954). Transformation of the binomial, negative binomial, Poisson and χ² distributions. Biometrika, 41, 302–316. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/41.3-4.302
Carrasco, M., Barker, E. D., Tremblay, R. E., & Vitaro, F. (2006). Eysenck's personality dimensions as predictors of male adolescent trajectories of physical aggression, theft, and vandalism. Personality and Individual Differences, 41, 1309–1320. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2006.05.005
Chabrol, H., Van Leeuwen, N., Rodgers, R., & Sejourne, N. (2009). Contributions of psychopathic, narcissistic, Machiavellian, and sadistic personality traits to juvenile delinquency. Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 734–739. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2009.06.020
Clower, C. E., & Bothwell, R. K. (2001). An exploratory study of the relationship between the Big Five and inmate recidivism. Journal of Research in Personality, 35, 231–237. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1006/jrpe.2000.2312
Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (2008). The revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). In G. J. Boyle, G. Matthews, & D. H. Saklofske (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of personality theory and assessment: Personality measurement and testing (Vol. 2, pp. 179–198). SAGE Publications. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849200479.n9
Egan, V., & Beadman, M. (2011). Personality and gang embeddedness. Personality and Individual Differences, 51, 748–753. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.06.021
Frick, P. J., & White, S. F. (2008). The importance of callous-unemotional traits for the development of aggressive and antisocial behavior. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49, 359–375. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01862.x
John, O. P., Naumann, L. P., & Soto, C. J. (2008). Paradigm shift to the integrative Big-Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and conceptual issues. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 114–158). Guilford Press.
Hare, R. (2002). Psychopathy checklist–Revised: Manual. Multi-Health Systems.
Knežević, G., Radović, B., & Peruničić, I. (2008). Can amorality be measured? In 14th European Conference on Personality (Book of abstracts, p. 137).
Knežević, G., Opačić, G., Kutlešić, V., & Savić, D. (2005). Preserving psychoticism as a basic personality trait: A proposed reconceptualization. In 113th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association (Book of abstracts, p. 176).
Knežević, G. (2003). Koreni amoralnosti. Institut za kriminološka i sociološka istraživanja & Institut za psihologiju.
Leistico, A. R., Salekin, R. T., DeCoster, J., & Rogers, R. (2008). A large-scale meta-analysis relating the Hare measures to psychopathy and antisocial conduct. Law and Human Behavior, 32, 28–45. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-007-9096-6
Le Couff, Y., & Toupin, J. (2009). Comparing persistent juvenile delinquents and normative peers with the Five-Factor Model of personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 1105–1108. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2009.06.011
Lenzenweger, M. F. (2006). Schizotaxia, schizotypy and schizophrenia: Paul E. Meehl’s blueprint for experimental psychopathology and the genetics of schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 115, 195–200. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.115.2.195
Macanović, N. (2009). Recidivizam. Socijalna misao, (3), 169–177.
Marić, B., & Bulatović, I. (2004). Sistem izvršenja krivičnih sankcija u Republici Srbiji. Udruženje penologa Srbije.
Međedović, J., Kujačić, D., & Knežević, G. (2012). Personality-related determinants of criminal recidivism. Psihologija, 45, 257–274. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2298/PSI1203277M
Međedović, J. (2011). Da li je amoralnost šesti faktor ličnosti? Zbornik Instituta za kriminološka i sociološka istraživanja, 30, 7–31.
Međedović, J. (2010). Bazična struktura ličnosti i psihopatija: Doprinos dezintegracije. Zbornik Instituta za kriminološka i sociološka istraživanja, 29, 7–29.
Međedović, J., & Stojilković, S. (2008). Bazične dimenzije ličnosti, empatija i amoralnost kod osuđenika. In Ličnost, profesija i obrazovanje: Zbornik radova sa III konferencije Dani primenjene psihologije (pp. 17–35).
Miller, J. D., Lynam, D. R., Widiger, T. A., & Leukefeld, C. (2001). Personality disorders as extreme variants of common personality dimensions: Can the five-factor model adequately represent psychopathy? Journal of Personality, 69, 253–276. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.00144
Savage, J. (2009). Understanding persistent offending: Linking developmental psychology with research on the criminal career. In J. Savage (Ed.), The development of persistent criminality (pp. 3–33). Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310313.003.0001
Someda, K. (2009). An international comparative overview on the rehabilitation of offenders and effective measures for the prevention of recidivism. Legal Medicine, 11, 82–85. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.legalmed.2009.01.064
van Dam, C., Janssens, J. M. A. M., & De Bruyn, E. E. J. (2005). PEN, Big Five, juvenile delinquency and criminal recidivism. Personality and Individual Differences, 39, 7–19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2004.06.016
van Goozen, S. H. M., Fairchild, G., Snoek, H., & Harold, G. T. (2007). The evidence for a neurobiological model of childhood antisocial behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 149–182. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.149
Viding, E., Simmonds, E., Petrides, K. V., & Frederickson, N. (2009). The contribution of callous-unemotional traits and conduct problems to bullying in early adolescence. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50, 471–481. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2008.02012.x
Walters, G. D. (2003). Predicting institutional adjustment and recidivism with the Psychopathy Checklist factor scores: A meta-analysis. Law and Human Behavior, 27, 541–558. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025490207678
Williams, K. M., Paulhus, D. L., & Hare, R. D. (2007). Capturing the four-factor structure of psychopathy in college students via self-report. Journal of Personality Assessment, 88, 205–219. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00223890701268074
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright over their published works and grant the publisher a non-exclusive right to publish the article, to be identified as its first publisher in cases of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media. The articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution International (CC BY 4.0) license, unless otherwise stated.
