Offender emotion and self-regulation: implications for offender rehabilitation programming

Abstract

Despite a growing body of evidence pointing to the central role of negative emotional states in the offence process, there has been relatively little work, either theoretical or applied, investigating this area. This paper offers a review of the literature that has sought to investigate the association between negative emotion and offending. It is concluded that there are grounds to consider negative emotional states as important dynamic risk factors that should be addressed as part of any psychological intervention to reduce the risk of re-offending amongst forensic clients.

Keywords:

• emotion
• self regulation
• rehabilitation
• offender
• risk factors