Psychological correlates of the criminal personality : quantification of the Yochelson-Samenow zero-state concept

After a thorough review of the literature of the criminal personality, Yochelson and Samenow (1976, 1977) stated that etiology does not necessarily play a central role in defining and working with criminals. They described a criminal as an individual who was irresponsible and had different degrees and emphases in his thinking patterns as compared with non-criminals or responsible people. The purpose of this research was to attempt to validate their phenomenological findings of a thinking pattern and emotional state known as the "zero-state." This state is made up of a combination of the traits high anger, low self-concept, high restlessness, and high hopelessness. Specifically, the questions studied were; 1. Does the "zero-state" as described by Yochelson and Samenow, exist as an underlying state in the criminal as measured by a standardized questionnaire known as the Birkman Method (1978)? 2. If the "zero-state" does exist within the criminal, are there differences in the traits that make up this state at various stages of the criminal's incarceration process? Importance of the Study. 1. This study provided further understanding of the criminal personality in terms of the "zero-state" concept. 2. Differences among the criminals in different stages of the incarceration process were investigated. 3. This study provided one of the first attempts to validate a part of the Yochelson-Samenow criminal mind theory. Procedures and Design. The sample population for this research was thirty-nine jail or pre-sentenced subjects, thirty-nine prison subjects, thirty-two exoffenders, and thirty-eight non-criminal subjects. The criminal subjects were randomly chosen from those individuals who volunteered to participate in this study. The non-criminal group was first randomly selected from the current files of the standardized questionnaire known as the Birkmaji Method (1978) and then matched with the criminal groups to assure a careful balance in testing the groups. In order to test the first hypothesis, a multiple discriminant analysis was utilized to see if there were differences among the three criminal, groups (jail, prison, and ex-offender). Because there were no significant differences, the sub-hypotheses were not tested. The criminal groups were collapsed into one group and compared with the non-criminal group. A two-group discriminant analysis was used to determine any significance in the second hypothesis. Finally, a step down f was used to test the sub-hypotheses 2A-2D. [...]