The relationship between mental illness and violence in a mentally disordered offender sample: evaluating criminogenic and psychopathological predictors

The importance of mental illness as a risk factor for violence has been debated with significant implications for mental health policy and clinical practice. In offender samples, psychopathology tends to be unrelated to recidivism, although some researchers have noted that this relationship may be dependent upon certain moderating factors. In the present, prospective investigation, psychopathology is examined as predictors of recidivism in 121 provincially sentenced (i.e. less than 2 years) mentally disordered offenders. Results indicated that psychopathological predictors were generally poor predictors of recidivism in univariate and multivariate analyses. Consistent with our hypotheses, age of onset of criminal activity was a significant moderating factor on the relationship between mental illness and recidivism, although results were not in the expected direction for certain classes of mental illness. Results are discussed in the context of a social learning model of crime and in terms of the treatment of mentally disordered offenders.     

Psychiatric symptoms and mental health court engagement

People with mental illnesses are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. Many interventions have been implemented to treat the underlying causes of criminal justice involvement and prevent people with mental illnesses from recidivating. Mental health courts (MHC) are one of these programs. This analysis examines the relationship between psychiatric symptoms and MHC engagement. Eighty MHC participants from two Midwestern MHCs were interviewed. Symptom severity was assessed at baseline using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. MHC engagement was estimated by treatment adherence, substance use, days spent in jail, probation violations, and MHC retention during a six-month follow-up period. Using nonparametric statistical tests and logistic regression, results indicate symptoms of depression, anxiety, and guilt are more severe at baseline for those people who are incarcerated during the follow-up period. Symptoms of anxiety are more severe for people who are terminated or went missing during the follow-up period. Further research is needed to determine the directionality and causality of these relationships. MHCs professionals should be aware of the relationship between symptom severity and MHC engagement and attempt to connect participants with treatment and services as early as possible and individualize treatment plans based on current symptoms and need.     

Harassment and stalking of Members of the United Kingdom Parliament: associations and consequences

A survey concerning intrusive/aggressive behaviours towards MPs was administered at Westminster, and in Queensland, New Zealand and Norway. Follow-up interviews were conducted with a sample at Westminster. This paper examines the experiences and associations of the 239 Westminster responders, of whom 81% had experienced intrusive/aggressive behaviours, 18% been subject to attack/attempted attack, and 53% stalked or harassed. Being stalked and subject to certain types of intrusive/aggressive behaviour were associated with younger age and being in the Commons five years or less, but serious incidents were more common in those who had been MPs for longer. There were no associations with brief periods of harassment. Some differences with party and constituency type emerged. Mental illness was prominent amongst perpetrators. Motives predominantly concerned personal grievances. Significant proportions of MPs suffered psychological ill-effects, necessitating inconvenient behaviour changes. Internal consistencies in these results and similarities to other sites are explored, and their implications discussed.     

The criminal career of men convicted of rape: evidence from a Norwegian national cohort

The extent to which sexual offenders are a group separate from other types of offenders has been debated for many years and investigated from different perspectives. The present study investigated similarities and differences regarding socio-economic background, criminal history and recidivism involving new crimes between rape offenders and three other groups: other sexual offenders, non-sexual violent offenders and other offenders. Data came from Norwegian population registers containing information on all crimes investigated from 1992 to 2012. The sample consisted of all persons convicted in 2002 and 2003 (N = 36,951). Background characteristics and estimated recidivism risk was described using hazard models. Results indicated that men convicted of rape (n = 142) had lower levels of education and that a higher percentage of them were on social benefits compared to the other crime groups. A large majority (79%) of rape-convicted men had previous convictions. Rape offenders were considerably more criminally active and diverse than the other crime groups. Prior criminal record, irrespective of type, increased the risk of recidivism in general. Controlling for other background characteristics did not alter this outcome. Treatment of convicted rapists needs to take into consideration that this offender group has much in common with violent offenders in general.     

重新犯罪与监管工作质量关系实证研究

监狱对罪犯的改造工作，无论是内容还是形式，都较前有了明显的发展。但数据显示重新犯罪率却没有相应地降低。重新犯罪率的高低反映一个国家的社会控制能力与水平，却不能科学、准确地反映监狱改造罪犯的质量。监狱改造质量的高低与刑释人员重新犯罪率高低具有一定的关联性，重新犯罪率不是评价监狱监管工作质量的唯一标准，重新犯罪率可以作为衡量监狱改造质量关系的一项指标之一。     

Typologies,risk and recidivism in partner-violent men with the B-SAFER: a pilot study

The research describes the criminal profile of 100 imprisoned partner-violent men (PVM) in Spain, and the follow-up for an average of 15 months of 40 released cases. The ability of the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER) to classify offenders according to typologies and to predict recidivism is analyzed. The results show that PVM have low level of specialization (only 45% limit their criminal activity to intimate partner violence (IPV)) and high level of recidivism (47% previously have been in prison, and 41% have prior arrest for IPV). The B-SAFER shows a high capacity to classify according to batterers typologies (accuracy of 79% with a score ≥13) in two groups: non-pathological and antisocial/pathological offenders. After prison release, 17.5% relapsed (15% in IPV), and 66% have done so within the first year. The B-SAFER had a predictive accuracy of 70% (sensitivity 100%). From antisocial/pathological group, 21% have recidivate compared to 12.5% in non-pathological aggressors, with an over-representation of antisocial/pathological subtype among recidivists (71%). The best predictive variables are the justification of violence, age at first imprisonment, and treatment. There is a 9% of recidivism among treated offenders compared to 50% in the untreated group.     

Long-term follow-up of criminal recidivism in young sex offenders: Temporal patterns and risk factors

Abstract

Recent studies indicate that risk for criminal re-offending in identified adult sex offenders may persist decades after the index offence, calling for inquiry into these issues also for younger sex offenders. The author studied temporal patterns for criminal reconvictions and the validity of 16 empirically motivated risk factors for recidivism among all young sex offenders (15–20 years of age) subjected to pre-sentence forensic psychiatric evaluations in Sweden during 1980–1995 (N = 126). The Ss were followed from release and for an average of 115 months. One-hundred-and-seventeen (115 male, 2 female) Ss were available for follow-up with a mean time-at-risk of 80 months. Base rates for sexual and violent non-sexual reconvictions were 30% and 42%, respectively. Using time-at-risk-adjusted hazard ratios derived from Cox regression, characteristics indicative of deviant sexual interest (any previous sex offending behaviour, an index sex offence in a public area, involving a stranger victim, offending on two or more offence occasions, and two or more victims) were found to increase the risk for sexual recidivism. Markers of antisocial lifestyle (early signs of DSM-IV Conduct Disorder and any prior violent conviction), sex offence-related characteristics indicating aggression proneness (use of threats or force and physical victim injury), and victim penetration, increased the risk for violent non-sexual reconvictions. Survival analyses indicated that the rate of sexual reconvictions as a function of time at risk decreased distinctly after 6–7 years whereas the rate for violent non-sexual reconvictions remained largely the same.     

Recidivism in subgroups of severe male juvenile offenders

Abstract

Prior research is lacking on the incremental contribution of juvenile offender classification systems in predicting recidivism. To address this gap, the present study examined a five-group classification system of severe adolescent male offenders based on the personality and clinical scales of the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI). Group membership was used to predict adult recidivism while controlling for criminal history. Male juvenile offenders classified as anxious/impulsive were less frequent recidivists than most other groups and had fewer charges after release than some other groups. Offenders classified into the psychopathy group were notable for their high rate of recidivism (nearly 50%). These results highlight the potential utility of offender classification systems for informing risk assessments among severe male juvenile offenders.     

Application of operational psychology to assessment of inmates

Abstract

The newly developed actuarial risk instruments, Static-2002 (Hanson & Thornton, 2003a) and Risk Matrix 2000 (RM2000) (Thornton et al., 2003), were cross-validated and compared with Static-99 (Hanson & Thornton, 2000) in a retrospective follow-up study of 304 forensic psychiatrically evaluated sexual offenders (mean time-at-risk=14.8 years). All instruments predicted any sexual, non-sexual violent and any violent recidivism moderately for child molesters [area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC)=0.67 (95% CI=0.57–0.77) to 0.76 (95% CI=0.68–0.85)] but poorly for rapists [AUCs=0.64 (95% CI=0.51–0.70) to 0.68 (95% CI=0.59–0.77)]. The instruments also predicted severe sexual recidivism moderately for child molesters [AUCs=0.74 (95% CI=0.63–0.86) to 0.79 (95% CI=0.70–0.89)] but were of no value in informing on this outcome for rapists [AUCs=0.58 (95% CI=0.47–0.68) to 0.63 (95% CI=0.53–0.73)]. AUC estimates were generally higher for Static-2002 and RM2000 than for Static-99, but no single instrument demonstrated statistical superiority. The study provides support for implementing actuarial instruments in applied risk assessments of child molesters.     

Factorial analysis of risk matrix 2000 on an Italian sample of sexual offenders

ABSTRACT

In order to assess the internal structure of Risk Matrix 2000 in an Italian sample of 308 adult males convicted for sex abuse, a principal component analysis with Promax rotation was performed. The results identified a structure with three factors that explained 53.8% of the total variance: the first factor concerned items referred to the criminal career of the offender; the second factor concerned the age of onset in committing crimes; the third factor was more strictly related to the offenders' attitude towards the sex crime/s, and reflects the aggravating items of the S scale. These results allows us to have the first validated tool on an Italian sample for assessing the level of risk for recidivism.