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- Engström, Alexander
(författare)
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Everyday life, crime, and fear of crime among adolescents and young adults
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Drawing on lifestyle-routine activity theory, this dissertation explores associations between everyday life, crime, and fear of crime among adolescents and young adults. It also examines the operationalisation of the concepts of lifestyle and routine activities, and explores the use of experience methods, via a smartphone application named STUNDA, to collect data about everyday life. Of the four studies conducted, Study I shows that different specific lifestyle measures are of varying relevance for victims, offenders, and victim-offenders, which indicates that no single universal lifestyle feature is of relevance for all outcomes studied. The findings from Study II reveal that spending time with friends in the city-centre is associated with lower levels of fear of crime across months, days, and moments. However, other associations between everyday life variables and fear of crime are inconsistent across these reference periods. Study III, a systematic review of the literature, shows that measures of lifestyle and routine activities differ in the frequency with which they are used in studies on interpersonal victimisation and offending. Illegal activities are often used as lifestyle/routine activity measures in studies on victimisation while unstructured and peer-oriented activities dominate in studies on offending. However, the measures used in the included studies are diverse, which indicates that researchers use a wide range of activities that are intended to measure lifestyle/routine activities. The final paper, Study IV, explores fear of crime in relation to moments of everyday life and finds that specific features of settings, such as being in semi-public and public spaces and on public transport, increase the odds for experiencing fear of crime.The overall conclusions of the studies point to methodological and theoretical directions for future research. First, research in the field of lifestyle-routine activity theory needs to consider specific and potentially different activities when examining victimisation, offending, and the overlap between these two outcomes. Further, fear of crime research must consider different reference periods, such as months, days and moments, since fear may not only be defined as a more stable trait-like phenomenon but also as a momentary and transitory experience in everyday life. The types of measures used to represent everyday life also require consideration, particularly in terms of the inclusion of lifestyle/routine activity measures that are actually related to criminogenic exposure. For theory more specifically, the implications of the findings point to an overall confirmation of the view that exposure to various environmental circumstances is associated with crime and fear of crime. However, across all of the studies conducted, the findings point to potential weaknesses of the theory. In particular, the lack of an elaborated perspective on individual traits and characteristics limits the explanatory scope of lifestyle-routine activity theory. For instance, people with similar lifestyles still vary in terms of their victimisation, offending, and fear of crime, which necessitates the inclusion of additional individual-level factors that could explain these variations. Future research must thus either modify lifestyle-routine activity theory or open up for other theoretical perspectives that provide a more holistic approach to understanding the role of both environ-mental and individual factors when studying everyday life, crime, and fear of crime.
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| 2. |
- Dåderman, Anna Maria, 1953-
(författare)
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“Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?” : Abuse of potent benzodiazepines, exemplified by flunitrazepam, in mentally disordered male offenders
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Flunitrazepam (FZ) is an example of a sedative-hypnotic benzodiazepine whose pharmacokinetic properties include a rapid onset of action and an intermediate duration of action. It has a high affinity to central benzodiazepine receptors and affects them profoundly. These properties, and its profile of activity, increase the probability of abuse by those who have access to it. Known side effects of FZ are abuse and amnesia. FZ is widely abused and it has become a drug of choice among opioid abusers, as a club drug, and as a classic “date-rape” drug. FZ is often involved in fatal intoxication. It is therefore expected that FZ abuse is common in serious offenders. I have studied the reasons for FZ abuse and mapped the prevalence of the abuse, with the objective of studying the personalities and the background factors of the abusers, and of drawing some conclusions about assessment procedures of FZ abuse and the position of FZ in society.The participants in the studies summarised here were fifty-six juvenile delinquents from Swedish youth correctional institutions, aged 14-20 years, and sixty non-psychotic male offenders referred for a forensic psychiatric evaluation (FPE), aged 16-35 years. The participants answered questions regarding their abuse, and this enabled us to understand why they abused just FZ (and not another substance). The participants also completed a number of self-reported inventories, which enabled us to obtain measures of personality traits. They were also rated for psychopathy. Five forensic psychiatric cases of FZ abusers were studied in more detail. Furthermore, the forensic psychiatric participants’ psychiatric diagnoses, and both groups’ crime-related measures, were obtained from their files.About 40% of the juvenile delinquents and 30% of the offenders referred for a forensic psychiatric evaluation abused FZ. The main reason for the FZ abuse was to change a perception of reality and to obtain an increased feeling of power and self-esteem, a feeling that everything was possible. Both samples of offenders differed from the normal population in many personality traits, suggesting that the participants possessed a high level of vulnerability for developing mental disorders, but only a few differences in personality traits were found between FZ abusers and non-FZ abusers. The juvenile delinquent FZ abusers had higher scores than non-FZ abusers in the verbal aggression and sensation-seeking boredom susceptibility scales. In the juvenile sample, FZ abuse was associated with the abuse of amphetamines and/or cocaine, cannabis, and opiates, and with childhood psychological/psychiatrical contact, with living in a metropolitan housing area, and with recidivism into crimes leading to care in a juvenile correctional institution. In this sample, FZ abuse was also associated with weapons offences and narcotics-related crimes. In the forensic psychiatric sample, FZ abuse was significantly associated with previous admission to an FPE, and convictions for robbery, for weapons-related offences, for narcotics-related offences and for theft. The results show that FZ is more common in offenders who score high on Facet 4 (Antisocial) in the Hare psychopathy model, and that FZ abuse has high correlation with Item 20 (Criminal versatility). All of the FZ abusers reported side effects from FZ that resulted in the brutality of their violent acts and anterograde amnesia. FZ abusers, when intoxicated with FZ, had a reduced capacity for both empathy and anticipatory anxiety, in contrast to their “daily” behaviour and “ordinary” (i.e., without the influence of the FZ) personality characteristics. They were not characterised by classic characteristics of psychopathy, such as lack of empathy. This may indicate that FZ induces psychopathic-like state-dependant (FZ intoxication) traits, and temporary dissociate states (“Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”?).In conclusion, FZ abuse is common in the population of young offenders with mental disorders, and FZ is often used for nonmedical purposes. The practical implications of these conclusions are that clinicians and those who develop or manage therapeutic programs should be aware of FZ abuse when choosing the most effective treatment for male offenders. General practitioners who prescribe potent sedative compounds should be aware of their possible adverse effects. The availability of FZ should be limited further, because FZ is frequently abused in vulnerable male offenders, and because FZ has serious adverse mental health-related effects and is related to robbery and weapons‑related crimes.
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| 3. |
- Dåderman, Anna Maria, 1953-
(författare)
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Personality traits and psychopathy (PCL-R) in male juvenile delinquents
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Abstract State-administered correctional institutions in Sweden take care of approximately 600 juvenile delinquents every year. The treatment for these institutionalized young people is based mainly on environmental programs and milieu therapy.Fifty-six conduct-disordered juvenile delinquents (mean age 17 years) from four institutions were studied with respect to their personality traits, and the prevalence of psychopathy (measured by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist – Revised, PCL-R). One objective was to study the reliability and validity of commonly used personality inventories. In particular, the validity of psychopathy-related personality traits, included in Schalling’s psychopathy model (1978), was examined by studying the relationships between personality traits and psychopathy (PCL-R), the occurrence of previous treatment occasions, and relapse into crime. Four groups, the delinquent participants, a group of high sensation-seekers (air force pilot recruits), normal male adolescent participants, and another group of normal young males, completed a number of personality inventories, which enabled us to obtain measures of personality traits. The personality inventories used were the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and the Zuckerman Sensation-Seeking Scales. In addition, the delinquent participants were rated on psychopathy according to the modified version of the PCL-R, designed to be used with young people (Fort, Hart, & Hare, 1990). Both variable-oriented (factor analysis, MANOVA) and person-oriented statistical methods (cluster analysis) were applied.As expected, most personality traits in the delinquent participants deviated from published norms and from our control groups. The delinquent participants showed a high level of pathology or vulnerability for developing mental disorders (such as substance abuse). About 60% of the delinquent participants had scores above 30 on the PCL-R, and were thus classified as psychopaths according to the manual. Further, 73% had scores between 27 and 40, indicating a high level of psychopathy. Delinquent participants showed a different pattern of sensation-seeking behavior than air force pilot recruits and normal adolescent participants, and differed also in other personality traits. They had a low level of socialization, indicating a lack of ability to take the role of the generalized other, and a tendency to impulsiveness, somatic anxiety and extraversion-sociability. The construct validity (convergent and divergent) of the KSP scales was found to be adequate. Some of the personality traits in delinquent participants, however, showed a different correlation pattern than that found in noncriminal people. Some of the basic scales from the KSP had high reliability, but many were not reliable when used on delinquent participants. Four factors were extracted using the maximum likelihood method. No significant correlations were found between the personality scale scores and the PCL-R scores. Finally, cluster analysis of the reliable and valid psychopathy-related personality scales from the KSP (Impulsiveness, Monotony avoidance, Socialization, Verbal aggression, and Somatic anxiety) identified seven different clusters of delinquent participants.The uncertain validity of some personality traits (e.g., psychoticism or detachment), the poor reliability of many of the KSP scales (e.g., Guilt, Suspicion, and Inhibition of aggression) when used on this population, together with some minor limitations of the studies (e.g., sample size) are discussed.In conclusion, the high prevalence of psychopathy in the present sample of male delinquent participants may have important clinical treatment implications, particularly since some researchers have suggested that milieu therapy increases relapse rates into crime in adult psychopaths. Hopefully, appropriate assessment of personality traits and psychopathy (in addition to obvious routine assessments of mental disorders, such as substance abuse or disabilities such as dyslexia), supervision, and the implementation of effective correctional programs, may prevent young people with deviant personalities from aggravating their deviant style of living. Key words: Personality traits, psychopathy (PCL-R), juvenile delinquents, reliability, validity, assessment.
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