Impact of Social and Psychological Factors on Violent Crimes Committed by Women with and without Mental Health Issues

Rusina V.V.
PhD, experienced forensic psychiatric examiner at the Outpatient Psychiatric Services State Institution of Public Health, Voronezh Regional Psychoneurological Health Centre
e-mail: victrus@mail.ru

Povalyukhina E.V.
counseling psychologist at the Voronezh Psychoanalytic Centre "Aleteya"

PDF (RUS)
Online translation in english

The paper focuses on the empirical research on risk factors promoting violent crimes in women. This research included a comparative evaluation of the impact of social and psychological factors on violent crimes committed by women with or without mental health issues. As it was revealed, dysfunctional family background and criminal antisocial environment contribute greatly to the development of aggressive reactions and violent behaviour in mentally disabled women. At the same time, healthy women tend to concentrate on negative emotional experience, which in the situation of chronic domestic violence inevitably leads to family crimes. The absence of significant differences in the analysed criminological characteristics proves that crimes committed by women are determined by general social factors, the main feature of which is violence against women.

Keywords: women offenders, mental disorders in women, personal characteristics, violent crimes, criminal antisocial environment, domestic violence.

Column: Experimental Research

For Reference

Rusina V.V., Povalyukhina E.V. Impact of Social and Psychological Factors on Violent Crimes Committed by Women with and without Mental Health Issues. Sotsial'naya psikhologiya i obshchestvo = Social Psychology and Society, 2012. Vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 103–115. (In Russ., аbstr. in Engl.)

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