Psychopathy and Criminality in the Light of Contemporary Empirical Findings
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47152/ziksi201301190Keywords:
psychopathy, antisocial behavior, the type of offence, recidivism, treatmentAbstract
Psychopathy is a set of personality traits that are characterised by a self-interested and manipulative interpersonal style, emotional superficiality, impulsiveness, disinhibition and frequent involvement in antisocial behaviour. Therefore, in the psychological and criminological literature, psychopathy is mentioned as one of the most important dispositional constructs when it comes to criminal behaviour and recidivism in offences. In this paper, we summarise and critically examine the role of psychopathy in crime through several themes: the production of anti-social behaviour in general, the association of psychopathy with the type of offence, in criminal relapse and the success rate of treatment of people with severe psychopathic traits in penal conditions. Although the findings show that the role of psychopathy in these phenomena is important, we provide a discussion about several issues when it comes to the relationship of psychopathic traits and crime, particularly in relation to qualitative rather than a quantitative difference in the type of the crime in psychopathic individuals, tautological relationship between psychopathy and recidivism and untenable position that psychopathic traits are resistant to psychological treatment.
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