Criminals ’ Emotional Experiences During Crimes

Eighty-three incarcerated offenders indicated, on a forced choice questionnaire, the emotions they had experienced whilst committing a specific crime they remembered well. Smallest Space Analysis of these emotions showed they reflected the circumplex structure of emotions postulated by Russell (1997) for non-criminal experiences. However, they showed a stronger distinction between pleasure and displeasure than for the normal range of non-criminal experiences, with Russell’s ‘arousal’ dimension being less clearly differentiated. Further analysis showed that different subsets of crimes were more like to be associated with different emotions. In broad terms, property crimes were found to be more pleasurable than crimes against the person. The results are taken as support for Katz’s (1988) proposal that the emotional significance of crimes needs to be considered more fully in order to understand the psychological processes that sustain and encourage crimes. The utility of Russell’s model indicates that the emotions experienced by criminals whilst committing crimes can be conceptualised in ways similar to other emotional experiences.