Trauma, Psychopathy and Female Offenders
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring the relationship between trauma and psychopathy in female offenders
IRAS ID
198785
Contact name
Darren Johnson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Tees Esk & Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 5 days
Research summary
This research concentrates on the Primrose Service for female personality disordered offenders. Based at HMP & YOI Low Newton, the service offers 12 places for female offenders who present with severe personality disorder and a high risk of committing another serious offence. The service forms a key component of the Offender Personality Disorder Strategy for women, which overall aims to reduce risk posed to others. To date, there is little research which explores the relationship between trauma and the development of psychopathy in females, particularly with a complex and unique population of personality disordered offenders. This research aims to explore this area and provide research findings which further help to understand the development of psychopathy in females. The research aims to provide descriptive analysis of the characteristics of the women assessed by the Primrose Service, including offence types, prevalence of personality disorder and types of traumas experienced. Participants will include female offenders who has been assessed by the Primrose Service. This research will use correlations to assess the relationship between psychopathy and trauma, using the Trauma Symptom Inventory 2 (TSI-2; Briere, 2000) and the Psychopathy Checklist Revised – 2 (PCL-R-2; Hare, 2003). During the Primrose Service assessment, each women is assessed using the PCL-R, therefore this data will already be available for the purpose of this research. Additionally, the research will explore clinical diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and its relationship with psychopathy and trauma symptomatology. Data for diagnosis of PTSD is obtained during the Primrose assessment. The data will be taken from the findings of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) for each participant.
REC name
Wales REC 3
REC reference
16/WA/0043
Date of REC Opinion
24 Mar 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion