Social cognition in intellectually disabled male criminal offenders: a deficit in affect perception?
| Published date | 12 March 2018 |
| Pages | 32-48 |
| Date | 12 March 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JIDOB-09-2017-0022 |
| Author | Luke Patrick Wilson Rogers,John Robertson,Mike Marriott,Matthew Kenneth Belmonte |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Learning & intellectual disabilities,Offending behaviour,Sociology,Sociology of crime & law,Deviant behaviour,Education,Special education/gifted education,Emotional/behavioural disorders |
Social cognition in intellectually disabled
male criminal offenders: a deficit in
affect perception?
Luke Patrick Wilson Rogers, John Robertson, Mike Marriott and Matthew Kenneth Belmonte
Abstract
Purpose –Although intellectual disability (ID) and criminal offending have long been associated, the nature of
this link is obfuscated by reliance on historically unrigorous means of assessing ID and fractionating social
cognitive skills. The purpose of this paper is to review and report current findings and set an agenda for future
research in social perception, social inference and social problem solving in ID violent offenders.
Design/methodology/approach –The literature is reviewed on comorbidity of criminal offending and ID,
and on social cognitive impairment and ID offending. In an exploratory case-control series comprising six
violent offenders with ID and five similarly able controls, emotion recognition and social inference are
assessed by the Awareness of Social Inference Test and social problem-solving ability and style by an
adapted Social Problem-Solving Inventory.
Findings –Violent offenders recognised all emotions except “anxious”. Further, while offenders could
interpret and integrate wider contextual cues, absent such cues offenders were less able to use paralinguistic
cues (e.g. emotional tone) to infer speakers’feelings. Offenders in this sample exceeded controls’social
problem-solving scores.
Originality/value –Thispaper confirms that ID offenders,like neurotypicaloffenders, display specificdeficits in
emotion recognition –particularly fear recognition –but suggests that in ID offenders impairments of affect
perceptionare not necessarilyaccompanied by impairedsocial problem solving. Theimplication for therapeutic
practice is that ID offenders might be most effectively rehabilitated by targeting simpler, low-level cognitive
processes, such asfear perception, rather than adaptingtreatment strategies from mainstream offenders.
Keywords Affect perception, Criminal offenders, Emotion recognition, Social inference,
Social problem-solving, Social reasoning
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Intellectual disability (ID) is characterised by significant limitations in both intellectual functioning
and adaptive behaviour (Schalock et al., 2007). Thus, individuals receiving an ID diagnosis
must present with both a reduced ability to learn new skills (impaired intellectual functioning),
alongside a reduced ability to function independently (impaired social functioning). Further, these
deficits must be present before age 18 (Department of Health, 2001). While the disorder is
heterogeneous, ID individuals typically struggle in areas including following instruction, prolonged
concentration and understanding social norms (Betts, 2011).
Such communicative, cognitive/executive and social difficulties may contribute to the apparently
high prevalenceof ID individuals in the criminal justice system;a recent international meta-analysis
estimated the prevalence of offending within the ID population at between 7 and 10 per cent,
significantly higher than that in the general population (Hellenbach et al., 2016). This estimate is
consistentwith UK-based figures on the converseprevalence of ID within the prisonpopulation; in
a mainstream UK prison, an estimated 7.1 per cent of the population demonstrated IQ scores
under 70,with a further 23.6 per cent fallingwithin the borderline range(70-79) (Hayes et al., 2007).
This overrepresentation of ID individuals in the justice system corresponds with one of the most
Received 5 September 2017
Revised 3 December 2017
Accepted 4 December 2017
Luke Patrick Wilson Rogers is
based at the Nottingham Trent
University, Nottingham, UK.
John Robertson is based at the
Nottinghamshire Healthcare
NHS Foundation Trust,
Nottingham, UK.
Mike Marriott is a Senior Lecturer
and Clinical Psychologist at the
Nottingham Trent University,
Nottingham, UK.
Matthew Kenneth Belmonte is
a Visiting Researcher at
The Com DEALL Trust,
Bengaluru, India; an Honorary
Senior Researcher at the
Centre for Autism, University of
Reading, UK; and a Reader
in Psychology at the
Nottingham Trent University,
Nottingham, UK.
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VOL. 9 NO. 1 2018, pp.32-48, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2050-8824 DOI 10.1108/JIDOB-09-2017-0022
cited studies in thefield, a cohort study following a population of Swedish individuals for 30 years,
which suggestedthat ID individualswere around three times more likelythan the general population
to offend, with nearly half of all males and one tenth of all females being registered for a criminal
offence within the past 30 years (Hodgins, 1992). This work suggests that individuals diagnosed
with ID are at a greater risk of offending relative to the general population.
However, this notion remains fiercely contested: reviewing the pivotal Hodgins’(1992) study,
Lindsay and Dernevik (2013) note substantial methodological drawbacks which may have
contributed to an overestimation of offendingprevalence in ID populations. First,they note that the
ID classification criterion used in the study, “attendance of special classes”, is methodologically
weak by today’s standards. This is particularly notable considering the time period; the cohort
would have attended high school in the mid-1960s. As inclusion of ID individuals in Swedish
schools was sparse throughout the 1960s, it is likely that these individuals would have been
segregatedfrom the school community(Ericsson, 1999); this segregationmay have influencedlater
offending. Additionally, review of literature suggests that the individuals attending these classes
likely already presented with behavioural issues (Grünewald,2008). Therefore, it is contendedthat
the cohortin the Hodgins’(1992) study is notrepresentative of ID individuals( Lindsayand Dernevik,
2013); the time period and the confounds posed by presumed segregation and pre-existing
behavioural problems limit the study’s applicability to today’s offending behaviours.
Evaluating the prevalence of offending in ID individuals is further complicated by varying
definitions of “intellectual disabilities”and “criminal offending”. For instance, borderline individuals
(Individuals with IQs of 70-79) are included sporadically, intent is often overlooked, and
unreported crime is difficult to quantify (Holland et al., 2002). This resistance to complete
quantification, coupled with failures to find any enhanced prevalence of ID in the justice system
(Messinger and Apfelberg, 1961; MacEachron, 1979), further calls into question the thesis of
enhanced prevalence of offending in ID individuals. Thus, while many studies suggest that
individuals with ID offend at a higher rate than the general population, the problem may be
overemphasised due to the issues described above.
Perhaps of more interest than ID individuals’offending prevalence are their specific patterns of
offending. Offenders with ID have been reported to exhibit higher rates of offence-against-person
crimes (physical or sexualaggression) relative to non-ID offenders (Asscher et al.,2012)–aresult
consistent with a review suggesting heightened prevalence of sexual offences relative to other
types of crime in ID samples (Simpson and Hogg, 2001). Further, aggressive individuals with ID
were found tobe at a significantly higher riskof reoffending (Holland and Persson, 2011) and, when
considering sexual offences, to be more likely to demonstrate consistent mild offences towards
peers when imprisoned (Brown and Stein, 1997).Thus, it appears that offenders who haveID are
more likely to commit person-centred crime, and those who do so are more likely to reoffend.
This link between ID and person-centred crime is particularly interesting when considered in line
with the second criterion for ID diagnosis, impaired adaptive/social functioning (Department of
Health, 2001). To receiveID diagnosis individuals must require support with their individual needs
and/or social adaption. It is only a minor step to considerthat the enhanced prevalence of person-
centred crime in ID offenders could, in part, stem from difficulties with social functioning.
A key component of effective social functioning is social cognition. Social cognition refers to an
individual’s ability to cognitively construct the social world and is necessary for smooth interaction
with other individuals. The social information processing (SIP) framework (Crick and Dodge,1994)
breaks down the processof social cognition, and has been employed as a toolfor understanding
social cognition variances between aggressive and non-aggressive ID individuals (Larkin et al.,
2013). The framework incorporates six stages: encoding of cues, interpretation of cues, goal
clarification, response construction, response decision and behavioural enactment (Crick and
Dodge, 1994). Within the first and second stages, individuals are hypothesised to generate a
mental representation of the situation;cues are recognised, encoded and interpreted. At stage 3,
goal clarification, individualsclarify a goal, which serves to orientate actions. Aftercue interpretation
and goal clarification, at stage 4, individuals construct multiplebehavioural responses that may aid
goal pursuit. Atthe fifth stage, all the generated responsesare evaluated and the most appropriate
is selected. The final stage, behavioural enactment, executes the chosen response.
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