An Examination of the Criminological Consequences and Correlates of Remorselessness During Adolescence

• DOI: 10.1177/1541204017700713
• Author: Turgut Ozkan,Alex R. Piquero,Ryan Charles Meldrum,Zachary A. Powell
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Date: 01 July 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

An Examination of the

Criminological Consequences and

Correlates of Remorselessness

During Adolescence

Ryan Charles Meldrum

1

, Alex R. Piquero

2

, Turgut Ozkan

2

,

and Zachary A. Powell

2

Abstract

Warr recently proposed that remorselessness may offer a useful explanation for understanding

persistence and desistance from criminal offending. While early empirical evidence supports this

framework, not only is replication needed but there is also a need to consider potential determi-

nants of remorselessness. Using data from the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development,

we examine the extent to which remorselessness relates to self-reported violence and aggression as

well as several potential correlates of remorselessness. Our findings show that remorselessness

during adolescence is associated with a higher likelihood of both self-reported violence and

aggression even after controlling for self-control, peer violence, parenting, prior violence, and

several other covariates. We also find that males and persons who associate with violent peers are

more likely to evince higher remorselessness, while individuals exposed to higher quality parenting

evince lower remorselessness. Implications of our findings are discussed.

Keywords

remorse, juveniles, violence, aggression, psychopathy

I would like to make it crystal clear, I do not regret what I did ...I am not sorry.

—Dylan Roof, convicted for hate crime shooting at the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal

Church in 2015.

In a recent article, Warr (2016) tasked the field of criminology to reconsider the important role that

emotions play with respect to persistence or desistance from crime. In particular, he highlighted the

important emotion of regret as something that would be related to desistance from crime, especially

1

Department of Criminal Justice, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

2

Program in Criminology, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ryan Charles Meldrum, Department of Criminal Justice, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th Street, PCA-364B,

Miami, FL 33199, USA.

Email: rmeldrum@fiu.edu

Youth Violence and JuvenileJustice

2018, Vol. 16(3) 279-298

ªThe Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/1541204017700713

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in that it conveys a “desire for undoing” (p. 233, emphasis in original). As well, Warr (2016) also

indicated that regret is closely associated with another individual characteristic, remorse, where the

individual recognizes the harm they caused by way of their crime and, in turn, acknowledges

“personal culpability” (p. 234). To the extent that an offender feels remorse for their wrongdoing,

it is anticipated that they will be less likely to offend in the future. When comparing regret and

remorse, Warr hypothesized that remorse may be the more relevant of the two with respect to fewer

instances of offending (p. 234).

The linkage of the concept of remorselessness to offending has received some attention in

psychology, with encouraging results (see Spice, 2013; Spice, Vilojean, Douglas, & Hart, 2015).

In criminology, Flexon and Meldrum (2013) examined the association between psychopathy

(remorselessness, unemotionality, and callousness) and violence—finding a positive relationship

between the individual characteristics and violence. Most recently, in the first explicit empirical

investigation of Warr’s remorse-based hypothesis in a sample of serious adolescent offenders,

Piquero (2017) found that remorse-resistant adolescents incurred a higher number of rearrests 7

years after the offenders responded to several questions designed to measure remorse. Conversely,

offenders who were more prone to remorse were rearrested for fewer offenses even after control-

ling for several key confounding variables. Although Piquero’s (2017) work serves as a useful first

test, it remains the sole criminological study investigating Warr’s framework and is constrained by

its reliance on a select sample and its use of official arrest records. Thus, the generalizability of

Warr’s remorse hypothesis remains to be examined—as does an examination of the factors that

may be determinants of remorse.

In this study, we use longitudinal data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human

Development’s (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), which

collected data on a wide variety of factors related to development beyond childcare that enables

consideration of factors contributing to antisocial and violent behavior across childhood and into

adolescence. We use these data to investigate (1) the extent to which remorselessness is related to

self-reported offending and aggression as well as (2) the sources of remorselessness. We recognize

that Warr’s concept of remorse occupies much common conceptual ground with the existing indi-

vidual characteristic of psychopathy. Importantly, however, remorselessness is typically not disag-

gregated from larger psychopathy measures and as such deserves to be empirically studied in and of

itself. As a result, we anticipate that there could potentially be a high degree of overlap between both

psychopathy and remorselessness, but anticipate as well that remorselessness will still be indepen-

dent enough from aspects of psychopathy to act as a stand-alone correlate of antisocial behavior.

Before we turn our attention to the data, methods, and results, we first provide an overview of the

concept of psychopathy and how it may be linked (but still separate from) remorselessness.

Psychopathic Traits and Antisocial Behavior

Individual differences may share common ground with both remorse/regret and criminal activity,

with one of the most commonly investigated constructs being psychopathy (Forth, Brown, Hart, &

Hare, 1996; Hare, 1968, 1978, 1980, 1996, 1999; Hare & Vertommen, 1991; Harpur & Hare, 1990).

In general, psychopathy is a psychological construct that often characterizes individuals who exhibit

antisocial behavior (e.g., Flexon & Meldrum, 2013). Specifically, the nature of psychopathy itself

demonstrates that individuals show “grandiosity, lack of empathy, lack of remorse, and a failure to

accept responsibility for transgression” (Seagrave & Grisso, 2002, p. 226, emphasis added; see also,

Cleckley, 1976). Oftentimes, psychopathic individuals demonstrate low inhibitory control and seek

easy gratification and satisfaction, leading to a predisposition of low resistance to impulses (Cleck-

ley, 1976) and injecting excitement into their lives, akin to expectations from the general theory of

crime (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). Gi ven the relatively large body of literatu re surrounding

280 Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 16(3)