A study of the connection between gambling and crime in Hungarian prisons

Abstract

In the following study, we examine the connection between crime and gambling addictions. In addition to examining the playing habits of 140 detainees prior to their imprisonment, we also study their demographic characteristics, and their relations.(2) We previously studied these correlations as a part of a data recording in 2009 (Tessényi-Kovács, 2011).(3) By the 10th of October 2012, the use of gaming machines was terminated in Hungary. Therefore, our survey has gained a repeated actuality, since a significant cause of addiction has disappeared from the market. We question whether this factor has had a measurable effect. Although the elapsed time is not necessarily enough to measure the presumed changes in crime due to gambling, we nevertheless make the comparison with the results from 2009. For the study of pathological problem gambling, we applied the original version of the SOGS-questionnaire, complemented with demographics and other relevant questions from the perspective of our survey.

Gambling Disorder in Male Violent Offenders in the Prison System: Psychiatric and Substance-Related Comorbidity

“…Both substance use disorders and antisocial personality disorder are highly overrepresented among offenders, and also connected to gambling disorder (Slutske et al 2001; Pietrzak and Petry 2005; Lorains et al 2011). During the past four decades, a total of 37 studies focusing on prevalence of gambling disorder in offender populations have been performed; 27 articles with varying methods are included in the review by Williams and colleagues (2005), five more are summed in the literature part of a study by Zurhold et al (2014), and another five have been published the last years (Kerber et al 2012; Turner et al 2013; May-Chahal et al 2016; Tessenyi and Kovacs 2016; April and Weinstock 2017). Only two of the mentioned studies include diagnostics based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th Edition (DSM-IV) (American Psychiatric Association 2000) criteria, in both cases in form of a self-report scale (Turner et al 2009, 2013).…”