Anam Arif Butt (MPhil, 2015-2017) Supervisor: Iram Fatima, PhD
Crime is persistently rising in our society and most of these crimes are being committed by repeat offenders – the recidivists. To explore this phenomenon, the present research investigated the role of psychopathy in relationship to criminogenic thinking styles and criminal social identity in incarcerated female recidivists. It was hypothesized that there would be a positive association between psychopathy, criminogenic thinking styles and criminal social identity. The mediating role of criminogenic thinking styles between psychopathy and criminal social identity was also hypothesized. The study was carried out with a sample of 63 incarcerated female recidivists with M age = 43.33(12.38) drawn from the district and central jails of 5 cities of Punjab; Sialkot, Gujrat, Gujranwala, Lahore and Rawalpindi. The measures included Psychopathy subscale of The Short Measure of the Dark Triad (S-D3; Jones & Paulhus, 2014), Measure of Criminogenic Thinking Styles (MOCTS; Mandracchia, 2017) and Measure of Criminal Social Identity – Revised (MCSI – R; Boduszek & Debowska, 2017). Pearson product moment correlation showed a significant positive correlation between psychopathy, criminogenic thinking styles (control, cognitive immaturity and egocentrism) and criminal social identity (cognitive centrality, in-group affect and in-group ties). Multiple hierarchical regression analysis revealed psychopathy to be significant predictor of criminogenic thinking styles and criminal social identity. However, the meditational analysis depicted that only the control subscale of criminogenic thinking styles was a significant mediator between psychopathy and in-group subscale of criminal social identity. The results were further discussed in the specific socio-cultural context of Pakistan. Findings might be useful in understanding the dynamics of recidivism in incarcerated females and assist in eradicating it from our society.
Keywords: Psychopathy, criminogenic thinking styles, criminal social identity, recidivism.
