Victimisation en contexte de délinquance, psychopathie et santé mentale chez les jeunes contrevenants
Context. Young offenders’ rates of mental health disorders and experiences of potentially traumatic events are particularly high when compared to the non-offending population.  While the association between potentially traumatic events experienced in childhood, such as abuse and neglect, and mental health problems in adolescence and in early adulthood is already well documented, it is otherwise for the association between potentially traumatic events experienced in the context of delinquency and mental health disorders. There is also no consensus yet on how individual characteristics, such as psychopathic personality, are likely to moderate these associations.   Objective. The general objective of this thesis is to probe the relationship between the experiences of potentially traumatic events in the context of delinquency, in this case victimization, and the mental health disorders symptoms in young offenders and to test the potentially moderating role of the psychopathic personality and its dimensions.   Methodology. The mental health disorders symptoms have been assessed using the MAYSI-2 screening tool (Grisso, Barnum, Fletcher, Carter and Peuschold, 2001), measuring alcohol-drug use, anger-irritability, depression-anxiety and suicidal thoughts. As for the psychopathy, it has been assessed using a self-report measure, the Self Report Psychopathy III-Short form (SRP-III-SF) (Paulhus et al., sous presse). Analyses were conducted within a sample of 200 young offenders between the ages of 14 and 25, of whom 54 were from an adult detention centre and 146 were from a youth centre.   Results. Regression analyses indicate that potentially traumatic events in the context of delinquency can explain a part of the variance of anger-irritability, depression-anxiety and suicidal thoughts scores and tend to confirm victimization in context of delinquency as a potentially traumatic event. Thus, only the affective and lifestyle dimensions of psychopathy have produced a significant interaction effect with victimization in context of delinquency in relation to the symptoms of depression-anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Specifically, the results indicate that young offenders’ mental health is more strongly affected by the experience of victimization in the context of delinquency on those with higher scores in these psychopathy dimensions.  The findings have implications for practice, revealing that some individual characteristics, such as callous-unemotional traits reported by young offenders, would sometimes be indicative of psychological distress.
Victimization Delinquency Psychopathy Mental health Youth offenders