A Research Report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfillment of the requirements of the PhD degree.
Johannesburg 2014 / The current study investigates the relationship between stressful life events, personality profile,
dissociative experiences, attachment styles and the types of crimes committed among 100
mentally ill offenders and 100 criminal offenders in the South African context. It is motivated by
the fact that there are no studies in South Africa comparing forensic patients and criminal
offenders and the various factors that may lead to criminal behaviour, and how these may present
in terms of the type and/or nature of offences committed. Instead, there is a growing emphasis on
observation of patients and assessments for fitness and competence to stand trial with very little
focus on understanding the mentally ill offenders and criminal offenders. This study aims to
improve the understanding and knowledge with regards to the presentation of each of these
groups under study and also to investigate possible differences in the types of crimes committed.
It aims to assess possible correlations between the variables of the study (stressful life events,
personality profiles, dissociative experiences, attachment styles and the types of crimes). It
further aims to inform future treatment interventions in the forensic setting and to offer possible
prevention models for the community setting. The study hypothesises that there are no
differences between the mentally ill offenders and criminal offenders with regards to stressful life
events, personality profile, dissociative experiences, attachment styles and the types of crimes
committed. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Committee for Research on Human Subjects
of the University of Witwatersrand‟s medical school. The sample size of this study consists of
200 participants (156 males and 54 females).
Convenience sampling was used, where 100 mentally ill offenders admitted at the Sterkfontein
Psychiatric Hospital and 100 criminal offenders, incarcerated at the Johannesburg Correctional
Services in the Johannesburg area at the time of data collection, were involved in the study. The
mentally ill offenders from Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital were interviewed at the hospital and
the criminal offenders from Correctional Services were interviewed in their respective prisons
without the presence of a prison guard.
Participants‟ ages ranged from 18 years to 60 years. Those people who were not willing to
participate were not included in the study. The Biographical details questionnaire, Social Readjustment
Rating Scale (SRRS), Stressful Life Events Screening Questionnaire (SLESQ),
Multiphasic Minnesota Personality Inventory – II (MMPI-II), Dissociative Experience Scale
(DES) and Attachment Styles Questionnaire (ASQ) were administered to the participants of the
study as a means of gathering information regarding the variables under study. The types of
crimes and diagnoses were obtained from the records. The study attempted to ascertain whether
there were any associations, and whether predictions could be made for possible future
assessments and treatment strategies. It is a quasi-experimental design with “diagnosis” as the
between-participants factor. Independent variables of the study were the type of offender, i.e.
mentally ill/clinical/forensic patient offender and criminal offenders, as well as the types of
crimes, i.e. violent or non-violent crime. The dependent variables were stressful life events.
These variables were measured in terms of low risk to illness, moderate risk and high risk to
illness; personality profile; dissociative experiences, measured as either low levels or high levels
of dissociation and attachment styles (secure, fearful avoidant, ambivalent and preoccupied
attachment styles). The confounding variables were substance abuse, medication and comorbid
diagnoses.
Descriptive statistics and the discriminant function analysis were performed. Box M was also
performed to test the null hypothesis that the covariance matrices did not differ between groups
formed by the dependent variables. The Chi Square test for independence was also used to
determine whether associations existed between two nominally categorical variables. The results
of the study indicated that there were only four female participants in the clinical offender group.
A high number of research participants were single in both the criminal (72%) and clinical (80%)
offender groups. Furthermore, the majority of the participants in the study were Black, where
93% in the criminal offender group and 75% in the clinical offender group. 65% of the
participants in the criminal offender group and 85% in the clinical offender group had no tertiary
education. There was evidence that clinical offenders tended to commit more violent crimes
(83%), while criminal offenders committed more non-violent (61%) and “other” crimes (21%).
91% of criminal offenders reported homelessness compared to clinical offenders (22%). The
Dissociative Experience Scale was statistically significant, suggesting that dissociative
experiences were a strong determinant of whether one is deemed a criminal or clinical offender.
High levels of stress were correlated with higher incidents of criminal behaviour. In contrast to
the literature review, past childhood trauma was not statistically significant in the current study.
Clinical offenders reported more psychological problems. When ANOVA‟s were performed,
psychological difficulties such as depression, anger, antisocial practices, low self-esteem,
psychasthenia and family problems were statistically significant, suggesting that these variables
were strong determinants for the likelihood of criminal offending. Dismissive and Fearful
attachment styles were statistically significant.
In conclusion, dissociative experiences, social re-adjustment, psychological pathology and both
dismissive and fearful attachment styles were strong determinants of offending behaviour.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/17467 |
| Date | 21 April 2015 |
| Creators | Radebe, Zama Khanyisile |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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