NCJ Number
223995
Journal
Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal Volume: 13 Issue: 3 Dated: June-July 2008 Pages: 229-236
Date Published
June 2008
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This paper examines previous cross-cultural research concerning varying rates of psychopathy between countries.
Abstract
The article indicates that past research suggests that incarceration policies may affect the percentage of psychopaths in the prison systems, where the majority of psychopathy research takes place. This paper explores the prospect of multicultural samples differing due to effects of the legal system. Additionally, it is noted that multicultural research has shown that rates of psychopathy differ between North America and Europe. Many suggestions have been given to help explain this divergence, including cultural factors, migration, and inter-rater reliability/sampling differences. The paper articulates additional explanations for cross cultural differences to include prison size and rates, incarceration rates of disproportionate crimes, types of crime, motivation, and victimization factors. However, past research has not explored the possibility that samples may be inherently different independent of a cultural factor. Future research and policy implications are discussed to further explore this possibility and respond to current weaknesses of cross-cultural research. These include studying psychopaths in alternative populations; how differing legal systems affect psychopaths; a wider scope of multinational psychopathy research addressing legal policies and issues in general; and further study on disproportionate crimes committed by psychopaths. References