Men's Personality Disorder Service, Rampton Hospital, Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust, Retford, UK.
J Appl Res Intellect Disabil. 2013 Sep;26(5):466-70. doi: 10.1111/jar.12035.
There is growing evidence of the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy to treat anger in offenders with intellectual disabilities. The aim is to lower anger levels; the rationale is that this will reduce recidivism. However, the hypothesis that anger levels amongst offenders are higher than non-offenders has not been tested.
The study utilizes a case-comparison design to examine whether levels of anger are higher amongst people with intellectual disabilities who have offended in comparison with those who have not offended. Anger levels are compared for 29 offenders with intellectual disabilities and 27 non-offenders with intellectual disabilities (all male).
No differences were found between offenders and non-offenders on measures of anger. The offending group was shown to have higher levels of aggression.
Results suggest that there is no difference in levels of anger between offender and non-offenders to begin with. The limitations of the study are discussed, but the implication of the study questions the legitimacy of the rationale to utilize anger treatment to reduce recidivism in offenders with intellectual disabilities.
越来越多的证据表明认知行为疗法对治疗智障罪犯的愤怒是有效的。目的是降低愤怒水平；其基本原理是，这将减少累犯。然而，罪犯的愤怒水平高于非罪犯的假设尚未得到检验。
本研究采用病例对照设计，考察了智障犯罪者的愤怒水平是否高于非犯罪者。比较了 29 名智障罪犯和 27 名非智障罪犯（均为男性）的愤怒水平。
在愤怒测量方面，罪犯和非罪犯之间没有发现差异。结果表明，犯罪组的攻击性水平更高。
结果表明，罪犯和非罪犯的愤怒水平一开始就没有差异。讨论了研究的局限性，但研究结果表明，利用愤怒治疗来减少智障罪犯的累犯是没有道理的。
