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According to Zillmann (2000) viewers function as “untiring moral monitors”; relentlessly coming to moral judgments about the actions and motives of protagonists and antagonists. How does this “moral monitoring” apply to morally ambiguous crime TV drama that features unlawful protagonists? The current exploratory study is based on qualitative interviews (N = 3 × 20) that aimed to provide insight in the grounds of moral evaluations of three selected episodes of mobster drama series The Sopranos. Viewers of three distinctive moral subcultures (i.e., prisoners, law enforcement agents, and civilians) were interviewed. The results revealed that the majority of prisoners and law enforcement agents grounded their moral evaluations mostly in their professional opinions and experiences, and came to fairly strict, yet different moral evaluations. In contrast, most of the civilians had a more “lenient” association with narratives and characters. Civilians generally based their evaluations on the morally ambiguous story world, and therefore showcased more nuances in their moral judgments.
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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of psychopathology including substance use disorders in a sample of detained female systematic offenders.Design/methodology/approach – All case files of female systematic offenders who had been subjected to a special court order for systematic offenders in the period 2004-2014 were studied. A total of 81 fairly complete case files were selected for the study. These were all systematic offenders as they had been sentenced for at least 25 offences with an average of 102 offences over a period of 17.5 years. Findings – All except one woman were addicted to substances in the past year, with an average duration of addiction of 21 years. In addition, 53 per cent were diagnosed with another DSM Axis I disorder and 73 per cent were diagnosed with a personality disorder. Furthermore, 32-59 per cent were found to haveintellectual dysfunctions. In total, 12 per cent had one type of the above disorders, 43 per cent two types, 31 per cent three types and 14 per cent all four types. The prevalence rates of these disorders were higher than those reported in other prison studies.Research limitations/implications – It is concluded that female systematic offenders can be characterised as problematic in many respects. Even in such a problematic group treatment can be provided.Originality/value – The present study is the only study that provides prevalence data of mental disorders among female systematic offenders.
Women and girls represent only a minority in the penitentiary system and in forensic mental health care. About 6%–10% of both prison and forensic psychiatric populations in Western countries comprise women (see for the most recent offi cial statistics in the UK w ww.gov. uk/government, in Canada w ww.statcan.gc.ca, and in the US w ww.bjs.gov) . However, there seems to be widespread agreement that in the past 20 years female offending has been on the rise, especially violent offending and particularly among young women ( Miller, Malone, and Dodge, 2010; M oretti, Catchpole, and Odgers, 2005) . Overall, a disproportionate growth of females entering the criminal justice system and forensic mental health care has been observed in many countries (for reviews, see Nicholls, Cruise, Greig, and Hinz, 2015; Odgers, Moretti, and Reppucci, 2005 ; Walmsley, 2015) . In addition, it should be noted that the ‘dark number’ for women is suggested to be bigger than for men. Offi cial prevalence rates of female offending might constitute an underestimation as women usually commit less reported offences, for example, domestic violence (N icholls, Greaves, Greig, and Moretti, 2015) . Furthermore, it has been found that – if apprehended – girls and women are treated more leniently by professionals and the criminal justice system. Generally, they receive lower prison sentences and are more often admitted to civil psychiatric institutions instead of receiving a prison sentence or mandatory forensic treatment after committing violence ( Javdani, Sadeh, and Verona, 2011 ; Jeffries, Fletcher, and Newbold, 2003 ). Hence, although female offenders compared to male offenders are a minority, female violence is a substantial problem that deserves more attention. Our understanding of female offenders is hindered by the general paucity of theoretical and empirical investigations of this population. In order to improve current treatment and assessment practices, our knowledge and understanding of female offenders should be enlarged and optimised (d e Vogel and Nicholls, 2016 ).