The Intersectionality of Sex, Race, and Psychopathology in Predicting Violent Crimes

Abstract

The present study used data on prisoners to advance our understanding of the joint effects of sex, race, and psychopathology, specifically antisocial personality disorder (APD) and Psychopathy, on criminal violence. The sample comprised 3,525 male and 1,579 female inmates between the ages of 18 and 45 years who were incarcerated in state prisons in Wisconsin at the time of data collection. Multivariate analyses were used to examine all sex–race–psychopathology combinations. The findings indicate that Black males and females with comorbid APD and Psychopathy were more likely to commit violent crime than similarly situated White males. While gendered patterns of aggression may characterize males and females in the aggregate, the present study clearly highlights the importance of considering sex/race subgroups when examining the relationship between psychopathology and violent crime.

An Exploratory Study of Female Psychopathy and Drug-Related Violent Crime

“…The facility houses maximum-, medium-, and minimum-custody-level female offenders. Psychopathy has been found to change as people age (Hare et al, 1990); therefore, participants were included in the study if they were between 18 and 45 years, which is consistent with prior research (see Baskin-Sommers, Baskin, Sommers, & Newman, 2013). Pretrial inmates and inmates receiving treatment or under assessment in the mental health or medical facility were not included.…”

“…Official reports of the most recent criminal conviction(s) that the inmate was serving a prison sentence for were collected. Consistent with Baskin-Sommers and colleagues (2013), violent crimes included murder, assault, weapons possession, and kidnapping. Three groups were created based on the evidence of drugs and violence.…”

Antisocial personality disorder comorbid with borderline pathology and psychopathy is associated with severe violence in a forensic sample

“…Nonetheless, only 14% of those with ASPD were violent, and Yu et al's results highlighted the importance of considering subgroups, particularly those defined by gender and PD comorbidity, in the nexus between PD and violence. A recent study of American prisoners further underlines the importance of considering PD comorbidity when considering the relationship between psychopathology and violent crime (Baskin-Sommers, Baskin, Sommers, & Newman, 2013). In this study, comorbidity between ASPD and psychopathy, defined by a high score on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R: Hare, 2003), was associated with significant increases in both the severity and versatility of violent offending.…”

Psychopathy is associated with shifts in the organization of neural networks in a large incarcerated male sample

“…Additionally, race (contrast-coded, white vs. non-white), number of substance use disorder diagnoses (SUD; z-scored), age (z-scored), IQ (z-scored), and number of previous head injuries (TBI; z-scored) were included as simultaneous covariates in the models. Race was included since previous research studies on psychopathy show different neurocognitive profiles across races (Baskin-Sommers et al., 2013a, 2011b). SUD and TBI were included because both were correlated with PCL-R scores in the current sample (see Table 1) and have been linked with abnormalities in neural network organization and functioning (Caeyenberghs et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2009; Pandit et al., 2013).…”