Family communication styles, attitude towards institutional authority and adolescents' violent behaviour at school

The purpose of present study is to analyse the relationship among certain family and school factors, adolescents' attitude towards institutional authority, and violent behaviour at school. The sample is composed of 1049 adolescents of both sexes and aged from 11 to 16 years old. Statistical analyses were carried out using structural equation modelling. Results indicate a close association between negative communication with father and violent behaviour in adolescence. Moreover, data suggest that teachers' expectations affect students' attitude towards institutional authority, which in turn is closely related to school violence. Finally, findings show an indirect influence of father, mother and teacher in adolescents' violent behaviour, mainly through their effect on family- and school-self-concept.     

A typology of dispersal prisoners

Despite the importance of maximum security dispersal prisons in England, and the plethora of studies on adult male prisoners, there is no published research on the dispersal prison population. The current study reports the results of a cluster analysis of demographic and criminological data on a large sample of this population. These results present a taxonomy of six subgroups of offenders. The taxonomy is essentially heuristic and requires replication and cross-validation. However, it presents a useful model to both describe the dispersal prison population and, importantly, to consider the question of optimal management strategies for the identified subgroups.     

A comparison of the risk‐taking behaviors of prisoners and non‐prisoners

Do prisoners and non‐prisoners differ in their risk‐taking behavior and the domains where they take risks? Surprisingly little psychological research has addressed these questions, despite the well‐established paradigms and extensive literature on risk taking among non‐prison populations. To fill this gap, we used the Domain‐Specific Risk‐Taking Scale to compare 75 male prisoners' and 75 male non‐prisoners' risk‐taking behavior, risk perception, and risk benefit in five domains (ethical, financial, health, recreational, and social). Our results show that prisoners and non‐prisoners did not differ in their risk‐taking behavior in the ethical, financial, recreational, or social domains. In the health domain, however, prisoners exhibited significantly higher risk‐taking tendencies. With regard to risk perception, prisoners perceived activities as significantly more risky than non‐prisoners, aside from the financial domain where non‐prisoners reported significantly higher risk perception. In all five domains, prisoners perceived risk‐taking activities as offering fewer benefits compared to the non‐prisoner sample. Our results also indicate that risk‐taking activities are better predicted by the expected benefits than by risk perception for both prisoners and non‐prisoners in the recreational, financial, and ethical domains. However, for prisoners, risk taking in the social domain increased with level of perceived benefit. In the health domain, prisoners' risk taking decreased with increasing level of perceived risk, whereas for non‐prisoners, perceived benefits, but not risk perception, predicted risk taking. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Metaphor and the violent

During the treatment of violent individuals who were, incidentally, highly verbal, the authors noticed that physical assaults were often preceded by the perpetrator s use of metaphors. It was observed that the linguistic metaphors failed to function as ordinary as if devices and became concretised. When this occurred, the perpetrators resorted to a physical attack. In this paper, the authors argue that the capacity to interconnect (which is considered to be the essence of psychic work) is dependent upon what can be conceptualised as a primary mental frame or warp. Distortion of the warp will, in turn, weaken the weaving, or interconnecting function of the ego, which is considered analogous to the interconnecting in linguistic metaphors. Clinical material from the treatment of three violent men (two in psychotherapy and one in analysis) is used to illustrate the hypothesis that the concretised use of metaphor represents a restitutive, but failed attempt to maintain a psychic coherence in the face of an imminent breakdown.     

MMPI scores of tattooed and untattooed prisoners

20 nontattooed and 20 tattooed male inmates' mean T scores on the MMPI did not differ significantly and showed an 8/4 pattern.     

Explaining the better-than-average effect among prisoners

We addressed explanations for why prisoners manifest the Better-Than-Average Effect (perceptions of superiority to the average peer), focusing on three biases: self-enhancing (social as well as temporal) comparisons, denial, and self-serving attributions. We tested the Better-Than-Average Effect in regards to prisoners’ perceptions of their worst trait, and assessed the relationship between the three biases and positive self-evaluations. Prisoners engaged in self-enhancing comparisons, differentiating themselves from other prisoners and their past selves who committed the crime, but also expected self-improvement in the future. Prisoners also demonstrated denial for intentions to commit the crime, planning of it, recidivism, and over-estimation of crime prevalence in the general population. Although prisoners made self-serving attributions by distancing their own character from their criminal behavior and reporting they had experienced more hardship relative to others, they did not attribute the cause of their crime to such hardship. More extensive self-enhancing temporal comparisons and denial predicted more positive self-evaluations of prisoners’ worst trait relative to the average community member. The strength of some of these biases varied with levels of narcissism and psychopathy.     

Behavioural coherence in violent group activity: An interpersonal model of sexually violent gang behaviour

This study provides an analysis of offender‐victim interactions in 223 cases of sexual violence committed in gangs. Cases were derived from archival sources such as law reports. A multivariate analysis revealed four interpersonal themes (dominance, submission, co‐operation, and hostility) previously identified in studies of lone sexual assault [Alison and Stein, Vicious Circles: Accounts of stranger sexual assault reflect abusive variants of conventional interactions. J Forensic Psychiatry 12:515–538, 2001]. These themes have also been identified in many other forms of human relating [Wiggins, An informal history of the interpersonal circumplex tradition. J Pers Assess 66:217–233, 1996] and conform to a structure known as the interpersonal circumplex. The circumplex has previously been used to conceptualise the relationships between individuals in terms of dynamic interactions that are mutually influencing. Thus, dominance elicits submission and submission elicits dominance. Each interpersonal style could be further subdivided according to the use of either verbally or physically abusive strategies. Point‐Biserial correlations with other aspects of the offence (e.g., mobility of the group, post‐offence treatment of the victim) provided additional support for these conceptually different themes and demonstrated that gang rape represents a distorted and violent form of interpersonal relating. Further, this dynamic interaction emerges not just at an individual level, but at a group level, suggesting that the thematic concepts underpinning the interpersonal circumplex can be extended to group activity and sexually aggressive behaviour. Aggr. Behav. 30:449–468, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

The secluded minds of violent patients

In this paper, I will present two violent patients suffering from severe Personality Disorders, illustrating the changes that can arise during the course of several years' psychoanalytic treatment in high security hospital. Progress was monitored using the Operationalised Psychodynamic Diagnostics (OPD) system. The clinical presentations will indicate how secluded these patients' minds are to themselves and to those involved in their care. The psychoanalytic treatment, as one part of the overall treatment, is described to show how the secluded parts of the patients'' minds can be approached, including references to the regular regressions that arise, provoked by ‘getting better’.     

Recognition of problem drinking among young adult prisoners

Alcohol is a preventable cause of illness, offending and other adversities worldwide. Prisoners are especially vulnerable. The aim of this study was to test the hypotheses that younger adult male prisoners are more likely to be hazardous drinkers than their older peers, but less likely to recognize this. The study cohort comprised 100 male prisoners aged 18-20 years and 157 aged 21 and over, who were interviewed and completed standard alcohol and drug questionnaires just after reception into prison. It was found that younger men were significantly more likely to be hazardous drinkers than their older peers but less likely to recognise this, even at scores on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) indicating dependency. They were also less likely to experience withdrawal symptoms, the main factor associated with problem drinking recognition at any age. Younger prisoners were less likely to be depressed, more likely to rate their social support as good and less likely to be dependent drug users. We conclude that reliance on younger prisoners to recognise their hazardous drinking would identify about one-fifth of them. With a lower likelihood of withdrawal symptoms than older men, they are probably still metabolizing alcohol more effectively. Given their similarities to older prisoners in terms of any previous imprisonment and likely personality disorder, formal screening for hazardous drinking might prevent decline into problem drug use, depression, reoffending, re-imprisonment, and social disconnection.     

A longitudinal examination of the relation between co‐offending with violent accomplices and violent crime

Although the idea that youthful offenders are affected by the company they keep is widely accepted, evidence in support of this idea is based primarily on reports provided by offenders and their peers. As an alternative to relying on reports of criminal behavior, a method that may overestimate the role that peers play in criminal behavior, the current research on co‐offending uses court records to identify and track over time individuals who are known to commit crimes together. The present investigation is the first co‐offending study to track patterns of violent criminal behavior (over an 18‐year period) among a sample of urban offenders and their accomplices. The study tests whether violence “spreads” from violent offenders to those inexperienced in violence. Results indicate that nonviolent offenders who commit their first co‐offense with violent accomplices are at increased risk for subsequent serious violent crime. Findings suggest that lessons of violence can be learned “on the street,” where knowledge is passed along through impromptu social contexts, including those in which offenders commit crimes together. Aggr. Behav. 28:97–108, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

A study of parents of violent children

This study based on in-depth interviews of 25 parents of violent children and a control group of 25 parents of nonviolent children concerned the parents' personalities. Parents were between 22 and 48 years of age and were from middle and lower middle socioeconomic backgrounds. Differences in classification by the nonblinded interviewers of parents into the two groups on six behavior characteristics were significant on chi2 tests. Some recommendations are made for further research.     

Predictors of aggression in Southeast Asian female prisoners

Although aggression is universal, few studies examine violence from an Asian perspective, and even fewer consider female offenders from Southeast Asia. The current study examined whether correlates of aggression in western male offenders are similarly effective for predicting aggression in female inmates (n = 114) from a local prison in Singapore. Aggression was measured using the Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire (comprising dimensions of physical and verbal aggression, anger and hostility) which we sought to predict from measures of impulsivity, general personality traits (neuroticism, agreeableness), psychopathy, and empathy. Impulsivity and agreeableness were significant predictors of self-reported physical and verbal aggression and anger, whereas neuroticism contributed to anger. Neuroticism and psychopathy were significant predictors of hostility. Empathy did not significantly predict any of the four aggression dimensions. Personality, impulsivity and psychopathy appear fair predictors of aggression for female offenders from Southeast Asia, just as they are for the western male offenders.     

Working with prisoners in a transitional space

In this paper I talk about the potential benefits for offenders of working within the transitional space provided by a discussion group. Through ‘play’ these men have an opportunity to interact and learn to be potent without resorting to omnipotent defences of violence to get their own way. In considering the discussion group within the context of the prison as a whole, I focus on the relationship between staff and prisoners and how this relationship can be managed in such a way as to create more opportunities for thinking, leading to an enhanced focus on rehabilitation.     

Exposure to violent media: the effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and feelings

Five experiments examined effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and hostile feelings. Experiments 1, 3, 4 and 5 demonstrated that college students who heard a violent song felt more hostile than those who heard a similar but nonviolent song. Experiments 2-5 demonstrated a similar increase in aggressive thoughts. These effects replicated across songs and song types (e.g., rock, humorous, nonhumorous). Experiments 3-5 also demonstrated that trait hostility was positively related to state hostility but did not moderate the song lyric effects. Discussion centers on the potential role of lyric content on aggression in short-term settings, relation to catharsis and other media violence domains, development of aggressive personality, differences between long-term and short-term effects, and possible mitigating factors.     

Predicting violence in the violent society

It is argued (a) that the leadership position of the United States in respect to our domestic rates of interpersonal violence is likely to remain unchallenged so long as public policy continues to encourage and support the rearing of biologically susceptible children by parents (especially single parents) who are unwilling or unable to socialize those children. This high incidence of violent crime in America underscores the importance of two additional issues of special interest to psychologists: (b) Are mental health professionals able to predict violence in individual mental patients or in criminal offenders (and how accurate do such predictions need to be in order to meet ethical standards)? and (c) How should clinicians apportion their “duty to protect” between their patients and their patients' potential victims? These issues are briefly reviewed, and the interested reader is referred to more comprehensive discussions in the recent literature.