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.

Summary, in English

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.

• Author: Mats Fridell; Morten Hesse; Mads Meier Jæger; Eckart Kühlhorn
• Department/s: Department of Psychology
• Publishing year: 2008
• Language: English
• Pages: 799-811
• Publication/Series: Addictive Behaviors
• Volume: 33
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2008.01.001
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Topic: Psychology
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 0306-4603