U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Mentally Disordered Offenders' Accounts of Their Crimes

NCJ Number
164157
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 23 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1996) Pages: 472-489
Author(s)
V L Quinsey; K S Reid; L E Stermac
Date Published
1996
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Sixty male offenders who had been newly admitted to a secure psychiatric setting in Ontario, Canada took part in a study in which they read descriptions of offenses and offenders and made a variety of ratings concerning their own offenses and the offenses of eight other offenders.
Abstract
A nonoffender control participant was yoked to each offender by being given the offender's history and offense description to explain and rate. In addition, the yoked participants evaluated the eight standard history and offense descriptions. Results revealed no differences in the ratings of the standard crime and history descriptions between the offenders and their yoked controls, except that offenders rated the causes of other offenders' crimes as less stable and others' likelihood of reoffending as lower than did non offenders. As predicted, offenders with personality disorders were rated as more blameworthy, more likely to reoffend, and more responsible for their crimes than were psychotic offenders. Offenders also rated themselves as less likely to reoffend than their yoked controls rated them. Tables, note, and 32 references (Author abstract modified)