Personality characteristics, particularly impulsive tendencies, have long been conceived as the primary culprit in delinquent behavior. One crucial question to emerge from this line of work is whether impulsivity has a biological basis. To test this possibility, 44 male offenders and 46 nonoffenders completed the Eysenck Impulsivity Questionnaire, and had their 2D∶4D ratio measured. Offenders e...

This study investigated the effectiveness of administrative lifetime driver's license revocation (ALLR) and its impact on offenders, based on a two-stage survey of 768 offenders. It was found that after ALLR had been imposed, 23.4% of these offenders were still driving almost the same as before, 59.8% drove significantly less frequently, and only 16.8% of the offenders gave up driving completel...

BACKGROUND Filicide, the killing of one's child, is an extraordinary form of homicide. It has commonly been associated with suicide and parental psychiatric illness. In the research on filicide, nationwide studies with comparison groups, specific perpetrator subgroups, and assessment of possible risk factors have been called for. The purpose of the current study was to provide all that. METHO...

Performance monitoring is crucial for well-adapted behavior. Offenders typically have a pervasive repetition of harmful-impulsive behaviors, despite an awareness of the negative consequences of their actions. However, the link between performance monitoring and aggressive behavior in juvenile offenders has not been closely investigated. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to investi...

This work analyzes the correlation of retrospective ratings on parental binding with cognitive patterns in the inmates for property crimes. The participant group comprehended 248 adults men, including 130 marked out as offenders (the target group), aged between 19 and 70, currently serving sentences in the Cavadonna prison in Siracusa, and 118 marked out as non-offenders (the control group), ag...

Public opinion about neonaticide (the killing of a newborn within the first 24 hours of life) has varied across time and cultures. Some nations have passed legislation on behalf of maternal offenders with the assumption that childbirth, a time of unique biological change, may lead to mental disturbance. The United States, however, makes no such distinction; offenders are prosecuted under genera...

BACKGROUND Polygraphy is used increasingly in the treatment and supervision of sex offenders, but little research has addressed its accuracy in this setting, or linked accuracy with utility. AIMS To investigate the utility and accuracy of polygraphy in post-conviction testing of community-based sex offenders. METHOD A self-report measure examined the experiences of offenders with polygraphy...

Few studies have longitudinally investigated the criminal profiles of violent juvenile sex and violent juvenile non-sex offenders. To make up for this lack, this study used police records of juveniles to determine the nature of the criminal profiles of violent sex offenders (n = 226) and violent non-sex offenders (n = 4,130). All offenders committed their first offense in 1996 and were followed...

Although currently there is a large body of research on the characteristics and treatment of sex offenders, very little research has been conducted to investigate the characteristics of sex offenders who have been adjudicated insane. This study included 42 patients at Napa State Hospital who were adjudicated not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) for a sex offense. The sample was further divid...

Only a limited number of studies have compared the psychosocial characteristics of juvenile sex offenders and nonsex offenders. The results of these studies have often been contradictory. Furthermore, studies in normal population groups are rare and most of those studies have been conducted in specific populations. This paper reports on the findings of a prospective, longitudinal study, the Pit...