Is PTSD linked to criminal behavior - Research Paper Example

of the of the Concerned 10 February Research Question: Is PTSD linked to criminal behavior?1. Friedman, Matthew J, Terence M Keane, and Patricia A Resick, eds. Handbook of PTSD: Science and Practice. New York: The Guilford Press, 2007. It is a very comprehensive book on PTSD. It elaborately and analytically reviews the scientific, psychological and social issues associated with PTSD. It also touches in detail upon the possible associations between PTSD and criminal behavior and offers a concise summary of almost 25 years of research.

This book has been edited and written by some of the top international experts on PTSD and is a very reliable and authentic source. The book also attempts to set an agenda for future clinical, psychological and sociological research on PTSD.2. Reamer, Frederic G. Criminal Lessons: Case Studies and Commentaries on Crime and Justice. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Precisely speaking, this book sums up the theories about crime and criminals from the perspective of an experienced law and order personnel.

In chapter 8 it discusses in detail the possibility of a correlation between psychological disorders like PTSD and criminal behavior. It also furnishes very relevant and useful statistics pertaining to mentally ill offenders in state and federal prisons. It presents the conclusions from many studies regarding the prevalence of mental illness amongst criminals. It is a very informative source which facilitates important insight regarding the research question from a practical, statistical and academic perspective. 3. Mash, Eric J and Russell A Barkley.

Child Psychopathology. New York: Guilford Press, 2003. Chapter 7 in this book is exclusively about childhood post traumatic stress disorder and criminal behavior. It delves on the ramifications of exposure to stressful and catastrophic events on children. The book summarizes various scientific studies that link childhood trauma to juvenile delinquency, drug abuse and criminal behavior. The approach of this book towards the question under consideration is very scientific and analytical. Chapter 7 also gives a detailed historical overview of the study of childhood stress and trauma and its relation to criminal behavior.

Overall, it is a reliable scientific source that will make immense contribution to the research question. 4. Goff, A, E Rose, S Rose and D Purves. “Does PTSD Occur in Sentenced Prison Population? A Systematic Literature Review”. Criminal Behavior and Mental Health. 17 (2007): 152-162. It is an elaborate and detailed, peer reviewed article that offers a literature review of the prior studies focused on the association between PTSD and criminal behavior in the offenders serving sentences in state and federal prisons.

This article makes an immense contribution to the selected research question in the sense that it is a compilation of the approaches and views of the previous researchers associated with the issue of PTSD and criminal behavior. 5. Begic, D and NJ Begic. “Aggressive Behavior in Combat Veterans with PTSD”. Military Medicine 166 (2001): 671-676. This is an immensely useful source as it examines the linkage between PTSD and violent behavior. The conclusions of this article are extremely reliable as it studies the association between violent behavior and PTSD by focusing on a select group of subjects who were clinically diagnosed as suffering from PTSD.

These conclusions could be rationally extrapolated to shed light on the larger issue of a possible link between PTSD and criminal behavior.