Psychopathic traits and offender characteristics amongst female offenders in a South African correctional centre

[摘要] English: Psychopathy among female offenders remains a relatively unexplored area despite an increase in offending behaviour amongst females. This study investigates psychopathy and the demographic variables among a sample of female offenders. A non-experimental research method with a criterion group design was implemented. The participants consisted of 100 female offenders currently sentenced at the Kroonstad Correctional Centre in the Free State. The data was collected through the use of two questionnaires, the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R) (Lilienfeld & Andrews, 1996) and a self-compiled demographic risk questionnaire developed from the Level of Service Inventory-Revised: Short Version (LSI-R: SV) (Andrews & Bonta, 1995). Descriptive statistics were calculated to determine the prevalence of psychopathy among the sample and a multivariate analysis was used to investigate any significant difference in mean psychopathy scores. Finally effect size (d) was calculated to determine whether any practical significance for the results exists. Results indicated that 90% of the sample in each age group complied with the cut-off score of the PPI-R, which is indicative of psychopathy. The differences in the average PPI-R score indicated a significant result at the 1% level for one demographic variable, namely primary caregiver. This indicates that the findings are of average practical significance. A one-way analysis of variance found a significant difference on the 1% level for blame externalization. This indicates a large effect size, which shows that the result is of practical importance. Thus it seems that female offenders presenting with psychopathy, who were raised by one parent or their grandparents show higher tendencies to blame their problems on others.

[发布机构] University of the Free State