Antisocial personality disorder as a predictor of criminal behaviour in a longitudinal study of a cohort of abusers of several classes of drugs: relation to type of substance and type of crime.
Mixed findings have been made with regard to the long-term predictive validity of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) on criminal behaviour in samples of substance abusers. A longitudinal record-linkage study of a cohort of 1052 drug abusers admitted 1977-1995 was undertaken. Subjects were recruited from a detoxification and short-term rehabilitation unit in Lund, Sweden, and followed through criminal justice registers from their first treatment episode to death or to the year 2004. In a ML multinomial random effects regression, subjects diagnosed with antisocial personality disorders were 2.16 times more likely to be charged with theft only (p<0.001), and 2.44 times more likely to be charged committing multiple types of crime during an observation year (p<0.001). The findings of the current study support the predictive validity of the DSM-III-R diagnosis of ASPD. ASPD should be taken seriously in drug abusers, and be targeted in treatment to prevent crime in society.
Fridell
Mats
M
Department of Psychology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Hesse
Morten
M
Jaeger
Mads Meier
MM
Kühlhorn
Eckart
E
D000328:Adult; D019969:Amphetamine-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D003415:Crime; D003417:Criminal Psychology; D005260:Female; D005607:Fraud; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008498:Medical Record Linkage; D009293:Opioid-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D011336:Probability; D012044:Regression Analysis; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D013548:Sweden; D013800:Theft; D013995:Time; D014754:Violence