Emotionality during and after the Commissions of an Offence: A Look at Offence-Related Shame and Intrusive Memories in Justice-Involved Adult Males

Abstract

The limited research concerning trauma secondary to committing crime in justice-involved persons has been restricted to male forensic psychiatric and violent offender populations. We aimed to extend this by examining justice-involved persons’ memories about their crimes, and exploring factors involved in intrusive memories across offence types. One hundred justice-involved adult males completed a questionnaire package examining offence-related shame, guilt, instrumentality-reactivity, and memory characteristics. Forty-three percent reported intrusive memories of a crime they committed. These were experienced across all crime types, especially those with reactive elements. Shame was found to be the most significant correlate of intrusive memories over and above all other factors. While further research is needed (e.g., with justice-involved women), results are in line with theoretical foundations of posttraumatic stress disorder and shed light on psychological consequences of offending. The findings have implications for clinicians and researchers alike, in that intrusive memories and shame may be precipitating factors for related risk factors and would relatedly be worth considering when evaluating patterns of violence and creating relapse prevention plans.

Keywords:

• Justice-involved adult males
• offence-related intrusive memories
• offence-related shame
• reactive crime
• trauma secondary to committing crime

Acknowledgments

This research was made possible by the support from the Ministry of Corrections and Policing and the helpful staff at the correctional facilities. We would also like to sincerely thank the men who were willing to participate in this research and open themselves up and share their stories.

Conflict of interest

All authors have agreed to authorship in the indicated order and the authors have no financial interest in the research. This manuscript has not been published elsewhere and has not been submitted simultaneously for publication elsewhere.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (767-2012-1457) and the Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science and Justice Studies.