The interpersonal problem circumplex is extensively used in the field as an assessment framework for understanding the interpersonal implications of a range of personality and psychopathology constructs. The vast majority of this large literature has been conducted in Western convenience and clinical samples. We computed interpersonal problem structural summary parameters for a range of personality and psychopathology variables in two Chinese offender samples (N = 424 and N = 555) and one undergraduate sample (N = 511) to test how well findings from Western samples generalize to Chinese undergraduates and offenders. The results showed that findings in Western samples generalized reasonably well to Chinese young adult and forensic contexts, although the interpersonal profiles of external variables were less specific in Chinese samples. Compared with undergraduates, interpersonal distress has stronger associations with the mental health of offenders. This study further elaborates the interpersonal correlates of individual differences in personality and psychopathology across cultures and assessment contexts, and it also extends the literature examining interpersonal problems in forensic settings.

BACKGROUND: The higher impulsivity of offenders in prison is a challenge for prison intervention. Childhood maltreatment, one of the factors closely related to the generation and development of impulsivity, is also prevalent in offenders. Therefore, it is critical to investigate the underlying paths that generate impulsivity in offenders who have experienced childhood abuse.
OBJECTIVE: Targeting positive protective factors, this study aimed to probe the mediating roles of self-compassion and cognitive reappraisal in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and impulsivity in offenders.
METHODS: The participants included 2643 offenders, 1534 males and 1109 females. Each participant completed the appropriate questionnaires to measure childhood maltreatment, impulsivity, self-compassion, and cognitive reappraisal. The PROCESS macro was used to perform the mediation analysis and hypothesis testing.
RESULTS: The findings showed that childhood maltreatment indirectly affected offenders\' impulsivity through self-compassion and cognitive reappraisal, and the mediating effect of self-compassion was stronger than that of cognitive reappraisal. Further analyses found that sexual abuse indirectly affected impulsivity through self-compassion, and the remaining types of childhood maltreatment were associated with impulsivity in indirect pathways through self-compassion and cognitive reappraisal.
CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that reinforcing practical training in self-compassion and cognitive reappraisal, especially the former, might facilitate the reduction of impulsive symptoms among offenders with backgrounds of childhood maltreatment.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to analyze the estimated prevalence of mental disorders among offenders and compare the estimated crime rate between mentally ill patients and the total population in Hong Kong.
METHODS: Service data of offenders referred to psychiatrists at the Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre from January 2011 to December 2020 were analyzed. Demographic data of gender, age on admission, educational level, principal psychiatric diagnosis, index offense, and assessment outcome were collected.
RESULTS: Data of 7535 offenders (74.8% males) aged 14 to 97 (mean: 41.3 ± 13.7) years were analyzed. More than 60% (66.2%) had a diagnosable mental disorder. The most prevalent principal psychiatric diagnosis was schizophrenia and related disorder (22.8%), followed by mental and behavioral disorders due to psychoactive substance use (18.6%), and mood disorders (8.8%). The commonest index offenses were theft and related offenses (20.5%), followed by acts intended to cause injury (19.7%), and illicit drug offenses (11.6%). The estimated prevalence of mental illness among prison population was 7.1% (male: 8.2%, female: 5.0%). The estimated crime rate for mentally ill patients was found to be 43.3 to 263.2 per 100 000 population.
CONCLUSIONS: The estimated prevalence of mental disorders among offenders and the estimated crime rate for mentally ill patients are relatively low in Hong Kong. The result was an important effort to document the changing characteristics of mentally ill offenders and provide an estimation of the prevalence and crime rate for mentally ill patients in Hong Kong.

Although impulsiveness has been recognized as a risk factor for suicide, few studies have explored how to protect offenders with impulsiveness from the risk of suicide. This study aims to examine the relationships among impulsiveness, suicide risk, regulatory emotional self-efficacy (RESE), and flourishing, focusing on the moderating effects of RESE and flourishing in the relationship between impulsiveness and suicide risk.
This is a cross-sectional study of 941 male offenders. All participants were requested to provide some items of demographic information and to complete a package of self-reported questionnaires measuring impulsiveness, suicide risk, RESE, and flourishing.
The results indicate that impulsiveness is positively correlated with suicide risk, while RESE and flourishing are negatively correlated with impulsiveness and suicide risk. Most importantly, both RESE and its dimension managing negative affect (NEG) negatively moderate the relationship between impulsiveness and suicide risk. Flourishing and the RESE dimension expressing positive affect (POS) show no significant moderating effect on impulsiveness-suicide risk link.
Regulatory emotional self-efficacy, especially its NEG dimension, can buffer the impact of impulsiveness on suicide risk in male offenders, indicating that these factors might be useful supplements in suicide prevention.
Offender with higher level of RESE and flourishing show lower level of impulsiveness and suicide risk. High level of RESE and its NEG dimension can buffer the effect of impulsiveness on suicide risk. RESE, especially its NEG dimension might be a useful supplement for suicide prevention in offenders with high impulsiveness.

Parenting styles are considered to have an important influence on the development of individuals and have been associated with empathy. The present study aimed to investigate the self-reported different parenting styles in childhood and adolescence and associated cognitive and affective empathy among offenders. Men incarcerated in prison in Jiangsu Province in China were invited to participate. Each consenting participant was asked to complete the Parental Bonding Instrument to collect information regarding the parenting styles they experienced in childhood and adolescence and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index to evaluate their empathy. A multivariable linear regression analysis was conducted to explore the associations between different parenting styles and the empathy of offenders, and a one-way multivariate analysis of variance and a t-test were used to explore the differences in cognitive and affective empathy with different degrees of parenting styles. The parental care and control factors in childhood and adolescence were significantly more strongly associated with empathy among offenders than the parental encouragement factor. There were different associations between the parental care and control factors and offenders\' empathy depending on whether the parenting styles were consistent or inconsistent. When the parenting styles were consistent, different degrees of parental care had a significant predictive effect on cognitive and affective empathy, while different degrees of parental control were only significantly associated with affective empathy among the offenders. When the parenting styles were inconsistent, different degrees of paternal and maternal control were associated with cognitive and affective empathy among the offenders. Our findings suggest that not only different parenting styles experienced in childhood and adolescence had different predictive effects on empathy among offenders but also the degrees of parenting styles and whether the paternal and maternal parenting styles were consistent or inconsistent may affect the patterns of parenting styles and empathy. Moreover, the parental control factor had a particular influence on empathy among the offenders. Our findings underscore the pressing need for adopting preventive monitoring measures or developing policies to improve parenting styles.

Emotion perception has a vital influence on social interaction. Previous studies discussed mainly the relationship between facial emotion perception and aggressive behavior from the perspective of hostile attributional bias and the impaired violence inhibition mechanism. The present study aims to provide new evidence of different emotion perception patterns between the violent and non-violent criminal samples through a new indicator of the facial emotion recognition test, Facial Emotion Perception Tendency (FEPT), calculated by counting the times a participant recognizes a set of emotional stimuli as a particular specific emotion, and to further examine the association between aggressive behaviors and FEPT. 101 violent and 171 non-violent offenders, as well as 81 non-offending control participants, were recruited to complete the emotion recognition task with morphed stimuli (Study 1). We further recruited 62 non-offending healthy male participants to finish the Buss -Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ) after the emotion recognition task in Study 2. Both non-violent and violent offenders were significantly lower in overall accuracy of emotion recognition and disgust FEPT, but higher in happy FEPT, than non-offending healthy controls. Non-violent offenders had significantly lower fear FEPT than violent offenders, and had higher anger FEPT than non-offending controls. The results also revealed that the level of physical aggression was positively correlated with fear FEPT, while negatively correlated with anger FEPT. The current study demonstrated that FEPT was associated with aggressive behavior and implies the importance of improving the emotion decoding ability of offenders. Also, the concept \"FEPT\" proposed in this study is of significance for further exploration of how individuals\' tendency to perceiving a particular emotion can be correlated with social behaviors.

Psychopathy is a personality development disorder increasing the risk of antisocial behavior. Studies on the relationship between psychopathy and decision-making have received limited attention and the result of studies is mixed. A present study examines whether or not the different factors of psychopathy are related to decision-making under risk and ambiguity in offenders and how they are related. Also, the study investigates whether general intelligence is associated with decision-making or moderates the relationship between psychopathy and decision-making. The results showed that only antisocial factor of psychopathy significantly correlates with Game of Dice Task (GDT) risky selections, but there no general relation between psychopathy and Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) performance. Lastly, general intelligence neither is related to decision-making under risk and ambiguity nor moderates the relationship between decision-making and psychopathy. The study results show that antisocial factor of psychopathy was associated with decision-making under risk rather than ambiguity. Our results also suggest that the antisocial factor of psychopathy was more related to executive dysfunction in offenders.

Naikan is a contemplative self-observation practice that originated from Japanese Shin Buddhism and is utilized for rehabilitating prison inmates in many countries. Although some investigations have provided initial evidence for its efficiency in decreasing recidivism, there is still a need for further investigation of the effectiveness of Naikan on other outcomes through more controlled studies. The present study aimed to investigate the efficacy of Naikan therapy on male offenders\' perceived social support and externalized blame. Ninety-two male offenders were randomly assigned to either the experimental group or to the waiting group. All participants were evaluated by the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and the Externalization subscale of the Test of Self-Conscious Affect before and after Naikan therapy. The results suggested that participants who received Naikan therapy showed higher levels of perceived social support and lower levels of externalized blame after Naikan therapy than before.