ABSTRACT
The importance of aggression and violence in psychopathic symptomatology has always been clear, and is well represented in the diagnostic criteria for dyssocial personality disorder (ICD-10) and psychopathy (PCL-R). Each set contains one criterion directly related to a history of irritability, hostility, and aggression, including overt physical violence. In addition, each set contains several criteria that are indirectly related to aggression or violence (for example, callousness, lack of remorse). The association between psychopathy and violence should not be surprising. Many of the characteristics important for inhibiting antisocial and violent behaviour – empathy, close emotional bonds, fear of punishment, guilt – are lacking or seriously deficient in psychopaths. Moreover, their egocentricity, grandiosity, sense of entitlement, impulsivity, general lack of behavioural inhibitions, and need for power and control, constitute what might be described as the perfect prescription for asocial, antisocial, and criminal acts. This would help to explain why psychopaths make up only about 1% of the general population but as much as a quarter of our prison populations. It also would explain why they find it so easy to victimise the vulnerable and to use intimidation and violence as tools to achieve power and control over others. As Silver, Mulvey and Monahan (1999) put it, ‘Psychopathy’s defining characteristics, such as impulsivity, criminal versatility, callousness, and lack of empathy or remorse make the conceptual link between violence and psychopathy straightforward’ (p 244).
