NCJ Number
144298
Journal
Criminal Justice Quarterly Issue: 3 Dated: (1993) Pages: 5-7
Date Published
1993
Length
3 pages
Annotation
Two hundred offenders in New Zealand, including 50 sex offenders against children, 50 rapists, 50 violent offenders, and 50 property offenders, were interviewed regarding the causes to which they attributed their own criminal behavior.
Abstract
There are various attributional dimensions categorized by psychologists, including internal and external, controllable and uncontrollable, and stable and unstable causes. Emotional issues featured prominently for all four categories of offenders; this emotional component was particularly strong for child sex offenders, rapists, and violent offenders, who successfully met their emotional needs through their crimes. Their perception of emotional gain acted as a powerful reinforcement of the offending behavior. While child sex offenders and violent offenders saw crime as a way to escape personal problems, rapists and property offenders saw it as a way of gaining a pleasurable emotional experience. In general, child sex offenders and violent offenders attributed their criminality to internal, stable, and uncontrollable dimensions, while rapists and property offenders attributed the causes of their behavior to external, unstable, and controllable dimensions. Many of the offenders had little concern or understanding for the consequences of their actions. These results underscore the need for individual assessments of offenders to identify what they perceive to be the causes of their offending.