摘要:

Purpose. This study examined the reconviction rates of a cohort of sexual offenders released from prison in England and Wales during 1979. A 21‐year follow‐up period was used and sexual, violent and general reconvictions assessed.Method. The sample consisted of all adult male sexual offenders discharged from prison in England and Wales during 1979 (N= 419). Criminal conviction histories were obtained for the sample from the Offenders Index and sexual, violent and general reconvictions were calculated, over a period of 21 years (1979‐2000).Results. A quarter (24.6%) of the sample received a reconviction for a sexual offence over the 21‐year follow‐up period, 21.7% received a violent reconviction and 61.8% received a general reconviction. A proportion of the sample received their first sexual reconviction 5, 10 or 15 years after being discharged from custody, thus remaining at risk of reconviction for many years.Conclusions. The findings from this study give a unique insight into the long‐term offending of discharged sexual offenders in England and Wales and have implications for the supervision of suc

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532504322776816

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2004

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. This study focused on whether institutional violence in a maximum‐security correctional institution could be prevented using comprehensive risk assessments followed by adequate risk management. And, could this be shown by a decrease in risk factors for violence according to the HCR‐20 Risk Assessment Scheme in the study group?Methods. Offenders with a history of violent criminality were subject to real‐life assessments using the HCR‐20 Risk Assessment Scheme. The assessments were followed by discussions with members of staff, in which risk management strategies were designed. Thus, the members of staff were fully aware of every inmate's personality characteristics (e.g. psychiatric diagnoses), what risk factors for violence they displayed, and how best to manage those risk factors. With the aim of evaluating the possible effects of our interventions, approximately one third of the study group was reassessed after a mean of 12 months.Results. The follow‐up showed no significant decrease in important risk factors for violence in the study group. However, the number of violent incidents showed a remarkable decrease during the study period.Conclusions. Not being able to reduce important risk factors for violence does not necessarily mean that one cannot decrease the risk for, or the incidence of, violence. This study indicates that proper and adequate risk management, using the best protective factors available, can reduce violence even though important risk factors cannot be decreased. The study also supports the theoretical assumption that changes in risk factors are more possible in some populations (e.g. general psychiatric) than in others (e.g. correctional) depending on the nature of the study group and the risk factors that are at hand (e.g. dynamic vs. static). This seems to be important to bear in mind when performing evaluation research using risk assessment in

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532504322776825

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2004

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. To identify the ways in which witnesses with and without intellectual disabilities are examined in court. Specifically to identify what questions are asked and what influence they have.Methods. Court transcripts were obtained for 16 rape, sexual assault or assault trials involving witnesses with intellectual disabilities and 16 matched cases involving witnesses from the general population. The cases were assessed systematically concerning the questioning strategies of lawyers and the influence of those strategies on witness responses.Results. Questioning of witnesses with intellectual disabilities was almost identical to that of witnesses from the general population indicating that lawyers are not altering their questioning behaviour for witnesses with intellectual disabilities, either positively or negatively. Cross‐examination is particularly poor for eliciting accurate memory reports, especially for witnesses with intellectual disabilities. The accounts of witnesses with intellectual disabilities are shorter and more likely to agree with a leading question than are accounts from the general population.Conclusion. The way in which witnesses are examined does little to ensure that their memories are as accurate as possible. People with intellectual disabilities should be questioned in such a way that their ability to give accurate evidence in court is maximize

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532504322776834

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2004

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. This study investigated the usefulness of a ‘story‐telling’ approach to understanding investigative interviews with children suspected of being sexually abused.Method. An innovative framework for understanding children's allegations of sexual abuse was devised from the ‘story‐telling’ literature, which examined the degree to which essential elements of a story, as well as order or disorder of narrative, were present in accounts of alleged abuse. Other features of the interview, such as the presence of free narrative, reliance on specific questions to elicit an account and bizarre or ‘off‐topic’ responses from the child, were also recorded. Transcripts of 70 interviews with children aged up to 12 years, from England and Wales, were coded using a scheme devised specifically for the purpose of the study.Results. The results suggest that although, superficially, the accounts adhered to a story structure, they were often incomplete, ambiguous and disordered to a degree which would impact on understanding. Reliance on specific questions, and other digressionary or non verbal responses from the child also compounded difficulties. Age differences in responding were noted, with the youngest children responding differently from their older peers.Conclusions. Implications for practice include the importance of careful questioning and the value of a second interviewer monitoring the interview. The story‐telling framework was a useful tool in suggesting where difficulties may arise for the child in presenting his/her account, and for an observer (e.g. juror) in making sense of the child's experience as elicit

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532504322776843

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2004

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to investigate the utility of the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) in predicting reconviction in a sample of male prisoners.Method. The PICTS was administered to 174 incarcerated male offenders at the point of their release from prison. Reconviction data were collected at a 2‐year follow‐up.Results. Of the eight PICTS scales, only superoptimism differed significantly between reconvicted and non‐reconvicted prisoners, even when age and number of previous convictions were controlled for. Reconvicted offenders scored significantly higher on superoptimism, indicating a more criminal attitude. This finding was supported by a sequential logistic regression, where superoptimism contributed significant predictive power to predicting reconviction beyond a model containing age and number of previous convictions.Conclusions. The results are compared with previous research using the PICTS to predict release outcome. The utility of the PICTS as a predictor for release outcome is disc

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532504322776852

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2004

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. The main aim of the study was to examine the relationship between motivation for offending and personality.Method. A specially constructed Offending Motivation Questionnaire (OMQ) was developed along the lines of Farrington's (1986, 1993) theoretical framework. The OMQ, the Mak Self‐Reported Delinquency Scale, the Gudjonsson Compliance Scale (GCS), the Gough Socialisation Scale, the Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale, and the Gudjonsson Blame Attribution Inventory (BAI‐R) were administered to two groups of students: college students and university students.Results. Factor analysis of the OMQ revealed four motivational factors for offending (Compliance, Provocation, Financial, Excitement) and one further factor associated with the failure to appreciate the consequences of the criminal act. As predicted, the GCS correlated significantly with a compliance motive (i.e. being coerced, manipulated, or tricked into crime by a peer, or eagerness to please a peer), whereas the remaining four factors were associated with a low score on the Gough Socialisation Scale. External and Mental Element attributions were mainly found to be associated with provocation and consequences factors.Conclusions. The findings support the view that there is a relationship between the motivation for offending, failure to appreciate the consequences of one's actions and personality. Further research should focus on studying this relationship among criminal popula

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532504322776861

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2004

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. Little research has been conducted on the effects of courtroom examination/questioning styles on witness confidence and accuracy. Two studies were therefore conducted, one investigating the effects of examination style on witness confidence and accuracy, the other investigating observers/jurors perceptions of witness confidence and accuracy.Method. In Study 1, after observing a video event, 60 witnesses were individually interviewed about the event according to one of three conditions: (1) simple questioning style, (2) lawyerese questioning style (containing leading and suppositional phrases), and (3) lawyerese with negative feedback style. In study 2, 60 observers/ jurors observed a good and a poor witness under examination by one of the three questioning styles. Measures of the perceived fairness of the examination were also taken in study 2.Results. In the main, significant results were found only for question items classed as difficult to remember. The lawyerese style appeared to have an adverse affect on confidence‐accuracy relationships. Adding subtle negative feedback reduced the problem, but at the price of reduced overall accuracy. Observers (jurors) also seemed to be most affected by observing the negative feedback style; judging the witness overall to be less accurate. An unexpected result was that, regardless of questioning style, presenting the testimony of the least confident witness first appeared to spuriously boost confidence and thereby perceived accuracy, in that witness's testimony. No significant effects were found for perceived fairness.Conclusions. In general, these results lend some support to those who have asserted that the lawyerese style of questioning may be unwis

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532504322776870

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2004

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. This paper is a survey examining beliefs about cues to deception held by prison inmates, prison personnel and students. In line with the ideas about more beneficial learning structures in the environment of criminals and findings from previous studies, we predicted that the beliefs held by prison inmates would be most consistent with the general pattern found in studies examining objective cues to deception.Method. A total of 326 participants filled out a questionnaire containing questions about cues to deception. The sample consisted of 107 prison inmates from high‐security prisons, 103 prison personnel and 116 students. Both between‐group and within‐group analyses were conducted.Results. In line with previous surveys, students and prison personnel held stereotypical and wrongful beliefs about cues to deception. Prison inmates' beliefs about deception were less stereotypical than the beliefs of prison personnel and students.Conclusions. The results indicate that prison inmates have relatively more insight into the psychology of deception. A reasonable explanation for these findings is that the environment of criminals is beneficial in the sense that they receive more adequate outcome feedback than the other two groups. The results indicate that studying this group may generate useful knowledge about the dynamics of dece

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532504322776889

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2004

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. The main aim of the study was to examine the reasons and personality factors associated with confessions and denials. It was hypothesized that antisocial personality traits and active involvement in criminal behaviour would distinguish true confessors and true deniers from false confessors and false deniers.Method. The participants were 1,080 students in further education in Iceland. Each was asked about false admissions made to teachers and parents in the past, as well as about confessions or denials (true and false) made to the police during questioning, and the reasons for having responded in the way they did. The participants also completed questionnaires relating to offending, personality and self‐esteem.Results. One‐quarter (25%) of the participants stated that they had in the past been interrogated by the police in relation to a suspected offence, of whom 59% said they had confessed. A small minority of those interrogated (3.7%; 1% of the total sample) claimed to have made false confessions to the police, whereas 10% claimed to have made false confessions to teachers or parents. Males were significantly more likely to report false confessions than females. False confessions and false denials were significantly associated with antisocial personality traits, with Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Psychoticism being the single best predictor. Those participants who made true confessions and true denials were most normal in their personality.Conclusions. Personality is a significant predictor of who makes false confessions and false deni

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532504322776898

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2004

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. This study aims to advance the original formulation of Eysenck's theory of criminality from the factorial level to suggest that primary scales of personality best determine reports of delinquency.Method. Two self‐report studies were conducted. The first consisted of 101 students and the second used an additional 101 students. The first study used measures of Self‐Reported Delinquency (SRD) and Socialisation (Gough&Peterson, 1952) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised Edition (EPQ‐R; H.J. Eysenck&Eysenck, 1991). The second study complemented the first study to utilize the EPQ‐R and SRD only.Results. A series of exploratory hierarchical multiple entry regressions of the factors in the first study demonstrate that high Psychoticism predicts SRD, whereas high Psychoticism and Neuroticism predict Under‐socialization. The primary scales of Disrespect for Rules, Depressed and Need for Stimulation significantly predict both criteria. The second study extends the first study through structural equation modelling to provide acceptable evidence of the concurrent validity of these primary scales with SRD.Conclusions. We propose that the significant primary scales of personality provide a clear reformulation of Eysenck's original theory of criminality as they explain the variance in delinquency and socialization in a systematic manner. Furthermore, primary scales provide a theoretical framework for behavioural interventions, as required by Blackbu

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532504322776906

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2004

数据来源: WILEY