Are Cognitive Factors Related to Criminal Reoffending?

Image from Graphic SociologyCan Brain Activity Predict Criminal Reoffending?  The previous post discussed a functional MRI study suggesting that the level of error-related activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) might have value in predicting whether a recently released prisoner will be rearrested within 4 years (Aharoni et al. 2013):The odds that an offender with relatively low anterior cingulate activity would be rearrested were approximately double that of an offender with high activity in this region, holding constant other observed risk factors. These results suggest a potential neurocognitive biomarker for persistent antisocial behavior.However, using ACC activity as a dichotomous variable misclassified 40% of low ACC participants who did not reoffend and 46% of high ACC participants who did commit crimes after release, not exactly the odds you'd want for making parole decisions. Even the senior author was doubtful that an fMRI test would ever be useful for risk assessment purposes on a case by case basis.Since Aharoni and colleagues made their individual subject data available as supplementary material (Download Dataset_S01, XLSX), I was interested in how some of the demographic and performance variables might be related to recidivism, since these are obviously cheaper and easier to collect from incarcerated prisoners than MRI scans.The cognitive task performed during the fMRI experiment required responding to a frequent stimulus presented 84% of ...
Source: The Neurocritic - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs