Emotional development in violent offenders, non violent offenders and sexual violaters : an exploratory study

Research on prisoners has developed from the early studies which examined a limited number of variables, such as hostility and empathy, in relation to psychopathy. More recent studies on psychopaths, violent, non-violent and sexual offenders tend to use a greater number of scales, measuring psychological (e.g., anxiety, hostility, depression), social (e.g., childhood and parental behaviour), demographic and physiological (e.g., EEG) variables. This literature has been reviewed, along with three theories of emotional development. While emotional development has generated many theoretical models, there has been surprisingly little empirical research in this area.The main aim of the current study was to examine whether a prisoners predominant type of crime (violent, non violent, sexual and control) is related to their emotional development. Thirty nine subjects, (10 violent, 9 non violent, 10 sexual and 10 control) were given questionnaires on emotional development, anxiety and anger-provoking scenarios and seven other psychological variables. Social history information was obtained from an autobiographical questionnaire. Results indicate that sexual violaters are functioning at a higher level of emotional development, than violent and non violent offenders with non inmate controls functioning at the highest level of emotional development. Subjects with high levels of emotional development were less likely to abuse alcohol, drugs and experience somatic complaints. Contrary to the literature, the psychological variable anxiety and not depression, produced the most significant differences between groups, with violent offenders expressing less anxiety than the the other three groups. The results suggest that sexual violaters process and integrate their anxiety at a different level than violent or non violent offenders, which may be related to their sexual violation of women. Parental punishment and reward, in subjects families of origin, varied between the groups, with sexual violaters and violent offenders reporting the most severe punishment. Examination of the psychological variables, did not produce significant results within the three prison groups, supporting the majority of the previous literature. The results were discussed in relation to the implications for treatment of violent, non violent and sexual violaters and the usefulness of devising a questionnaire similar to Lane and Schwartz's (1987) Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale, in order to examine the structure of other psychological variables, such as anger and anxiety