Psychopathy Among Offenders

In the article “Remorse, Psychopathology, and Psychopathy among Adolescent Offenders” by Andrew Spice, Jodi Viljoen, Kevin Douglas, and Stephen Hart, the aim is to establish the effects of shame and remorse on young offenders. Previous research doesn’t allow discussion for the implications and differences between the two emotions. The article is meant to link the “bad” guys with the bad feelings; bad is in quotations as these people are deviant, but not necessarily bad. In the words of the authors “The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship of remorse with psychopathic characteristics and psychopathology among adolescent offenders.” (Douglas, Hart, Spice, Viljoen, 2015).
The article, published in the academic journal Law
In Chapter 6, written by John Braithwaite, the textbook describes Shaming theory. Shaming theory states that delinquency and deviance are controlled by a person’s shame and the way they are connected to their society. Societies find that some identities and positions within communities bring responsibilities and attachments. The level of attachments are referred to as a person’s interdependency. For instance, a young, 20 year old woman with a job, a husband, and a monthly book club has more interdependency than a 60 year old unemployed man who doesn’t belong to any social circles. In a broader sense, communitarian societies like those found in the eastern hemisphere have more interdependency than the rather solitary community America offers. “Interdependent persons are much more susceptible to shaming” (Braithwaite, 2010) People who are more attached and hold more responsibilities have that many more opportunities to face
When the community chooses reintegration, they find that the deviant is more likely to realign themselves with the values of the population. Because the punishment does not illicit a rejection response from its victim, it is far less potent and deviants find they can move past it without feeling ostracized completely. But when the deviant is stigmatized, they see that the subject is more likely to veer off from the norm again. “Shaming that is stigmatizing, in contrast, makes criminal subcultures more attractive because these are in some sense subcultures which reject the rejectors” (Braithwaite, 2010) Shaming, and all the negative behaviors we see it influences in the article from Law and Human Behavior, create a comradery with others who have been shamed. Collectively, they support deviance in each other. Again, a subcultures’ attitudes, behaviors and conditions all contribute to the furthering of deviance in a