Virtual Issue: Psychopathy in Crime and Justice

Dr Dominic Willmott (Editor-in-Chief) - Loughborough University, UK

Legal, Forensic and Criminological Psychology priorities continue to evolve over time. Certain crime types become less central to mainstream research endeavour and new types of offences and offenders take precedence. One obvious example is cybercrime – an area that has exploded over recent years as our reliance on technology and the internet expands ever further – creating opportunities for new types of online offending to occur as well as novel challenges for authorities who attempt to police digital crime. Though, there is one topic that has remained of core interest to researchers across these intersecting disciplines - Psychopathy. Since 2020 alone, more than 18,000 new articles have been published on the topic alongside countless true crime documentaries, speculating whether a particular homicide offender may have been a ‘psychopath’ or not. Whilst the link between homicide and psychopathy remains in dispute (e.g. a 2017 study by Nicole Sherretts and colleagues  found recidivistic offenders scored higher in psychopathy than convicted murderers), what is not contested is that the scientific study of the disorder remains one of the most researched topics in psychology today. Prospective students and the public alike remain obsessed with the link between psychopathy and crime. This is a trend that appears unlikely to change anytime soon and one which has led several high-profile psychopathy researchers (e.g. Daniel Boduszek in Poland, Matt DeLisi in the US), to begin to write books for non-specialist audiences, where their empirical insights can be more widely understood by the lay public. In fact, to some degree it is this trend that arguably drives the next generation of psychopathy researchers to become just that, inspiring them to complete university qualifications in psychology, criminology and applied criminal justice. Indeed, research on psychopathy is just as widespread and diverse as those who are globally fascinated by it. Vast literature investigates the atelogical basis of psychopathy, traits that appear central to the disorder, its link with sexual offending and the social cognitions which underlie such violence, as well as recent work examining the influence that psychopathic traits may have in courtroom decision making. Given this vast and continued interest in psychopathy, I have drawn together 10 of the ‘latest and greatest’ research articles published in the Journal of Criminal Psychology (JCP) since the publication’s inception. This includes work by many of the most prolific psychopathy researchers active today who examine the role of psychopathy in the commission of crime and seek answers to questions that help us better understand exactly how the criminal justice system can best respond to the disorder. 

Included in this virtual special issue is recent work by Keulen-de Vos, Herzog-Evans and Benbouriche (2024) who examine the predictive value of psychopathy features on crime-related emotional states among their sample of 175 Dutch forensic patients. The authors found affective features of psychopathy were a negative predictor for feelings of vulnerability in the events leading up to their crimes and interpersonal features were predictive of deceit during criminal behaviour, offering a more nuanced understanding of which emotional states play a prominent role in criminal behaviour. In Escarguel and colleagues’ (2024) study, the authors also focus on affect, examining the role of the dark triad and emotion regulation in women’ sexually coercive behaviour. Among their sample of 125 French-speaking women, those who self-reported a history of sexual coercion perpetration showed positive associations between psychopathic traits and alexithymia, and between Machiavellianism and deficits in emotion regulation, increasing their likelihood of sexual coercion. Next, Spantidaki-Kyriazi and colleagues (2023), who conducted a multilevel analysis that revealed whilst individuals with low levels of psychopathy reacted more positively to affiliative stimuli, individuals with high levels of psychopathy reacted equally positively to both affiliative and antagonistic stimuli. As such, the authors argue that identifying the mechanisms that foster positive connections between psychopathic traits and non-prosocial tendencies may be theoretically and clinically informative within forensic settings in future research. Moving from affective aspects of psychopathy to environmental correlates, Zara, Bergstrøm and Farrington (2024) present evidence from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD) that suggests unwanted conception, poor maternal health and overcrowded living conditions during formative years were important correlates for increased rates of psychopathy in adulthood. In a response paper, Brazil (2024) critically considers these findings arguing instead that ‘being unwanted’ by ones parents may increase the risk of psychopathy development not simply for protective reasons (e.g. if I am not loved, I will shield myself from those around me) but to actively orient toward exploitation (i.e. if I am not loved, I will exploit those around me). What remains clear is that both articles argue in favour of longstanding evidence that suggests adverse childhood experiences can influence the development of a diverse range of maladaptive and psychopathic personality traits.

Looking to the possible behavioural outcomes of psychopathy, in one of the most widely cited papers ever published in the Journal of Criminal Psychology, Boduszek and colleagues’ (2013) critical review of the link between psychopathy and criminality concludes that vast empirical evidence finds psychopathy to be a robust predictor of criminal behaviour and recidivism. In their review, the authors also obtained considerable support for the assertion that violence perpetrated by psychopathic offenders was more instrumental than the violence committed by other types of offenders. Building upon this work, Debowska and Zeyrek-Rios’s (2015) primary data collection among 129 male Polish prisoners revealed that alongside incarceration length, only one psychopathy facet (interpersonal manipulation) formed a significant association with reactive aggression. Adopting a somewhat different approach to a Victorian serial killer case, in their study David Wilson and Elizabeth Yardley (2013) analyse archival materials in an effort to assess Mary Ann Cotton, a nineteenth century British serial killer, for psychopathy. Sticking with the theme of psychopathy assessment, the next study included in this special issue is by Pechorro and colleagues (2023) who adopt a longitudinal research design among a sample of 214 detained male youths to examine whether the addition of a conduct disorder (CD) factor improves the ability of the Short Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI-S) to predict criminal recidivism. The authors conclude that whilst the inclusion of a CD factor slightly improved the tools’ ability to predict one-year recidivism, it did not significantly increase the tools’ capacity to predict violent recidivism overall – indicating that self-reported youth psychopathic trait measures should be used with caution when the aim is to predict youth criminal recidivism. And finally, in the last paper included in this special issue by DeLisi and colleagues (2017), the authors investigate the financial cost of psychopathy-oriented offending among delinquent populations in the US state of Missouri. From their monetization study seeking to quantify the effects of psychopathy features on crime costs, the authors conclude youth imposed total costs of $30 million per year from psychopathic youth involvement in robbery, theft, and assault. Among the most criminally active psychopathic-youth, costs were found to exceed $700 million in total, highlighting that alongside the psychosocial consequences of the disorder, the economic burden can also be extensive. 

The ten articles included in this virtual special issue are linked below for your ease of reference. Please do download and enjoy them in your efforts to better understand the role of psychopathy in crime and justice from work published in the Journal of Criminal Psychology.

1. The relation between psychopathy factors and emotional states prior and during criminal behaviour in a Dutch sample - Keulen-de Vos, M., Herzog-Evans, M. and Benbouriche, M. (2024)

2. A multi-method investigation of motive dispositions: affiliative and antagonistic dispositions in psychopathy - Spantidaki Kyriazi, F., Bogaerts, S., Denissen, J.J.A., Yuan, S., Dufner, M. and Garofalo, C. (2023)

3. The role of the dark triad and emotion regulation in women’ sexual coercion: a social information processing perspective - Escarguel, M., Benbouriche, M., Tibbels, S. and Przygodzki-Lionet, N. (2024)
4. Why might psychopathy develop? Beyond a protective function: a commentary on Zara et al. (2023) - Brazil, K.J. (2024)

5. Being unwanted and other very early predictors of adult psychopathy - Zara, G., Bergstrøm, H. and Farrington, D.P. (2024)

6. Does a conduct disorder factor increment the capacity of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory-Short to predict criminal recidivism? - Pechorro, P., Gomide, P., DeLisi, M. and Simões, M. (2023)

7. Psychopathic costs: a monetization study of the fiscal toll of psychopathy features among institutionalized delinquents - DeLisi, M., Reidy, D.E., Heirigs, M.H., Tostlebe, J.J. and Vaughn, M.G. (2018)

8. The role of psychopathy factors in reactive aggression within a sample of prisoners - Debowska, A. and Zeyrek Rios, E.Y. (2015)

9. Psychopathy and criminal behaviour: a psychosocial research perspective - Dhingra, K. and Boduszek, D. (2013)

10. The psychopathy of a Victorian serial killer: integrating micro and macro levels of analysis - Wilson, D. and Yardley, E. (2013)