Personality and retaliation as predictors of criminal behaviour among murder suspects in Agodi Prison, Ibadan

Abstract

This study investigated personality traits and retaliation as predictors of criminal behaviour among murder suspects in Agodi prison, Ibadan. The independent variables are Personality traits and retaliation while the dependent variable is criminal behaviour. The study was conducted in Ibadan city adopting the expo facto design. Purposive sampling technique was used to sample 151 participants consisting of 141 males, 10 females. The Big Five Personality Inventory by Gerlitz and Schupp (2005), Retaliation scale developed by Mccullough, Root and Cohen (1998), and Rashwan (2003)’s criminal Behaviour scale (BSC) were the instruments used in the study. Mean scores, frequencies, percentages, Pearson's correlation, t test for independent and multiple regressions were used for analysis. The results disclosed that while males scored higher than females on criminal behaviour t (149= 7.999; P<.01), participants with higher scores on extraversion personality traits were also scored higher on criminal behaviour compared to individuals with lower scores on extraversion t(149)=2.248; P<.05). Also, age, sex, marital status, crime committed, duration and type of sentence jointly predict criminal behaviour(R=.378; R2=.143’F (5,125) =3.492; P<.05). However, sex independently predicted criminal behaviour (B=.34; t=4.214; p<.01). The implication of these findings is to inform the government and general society about the need for psychologists to be involved in the rehabilitation process of individual inmates in prison; offenders should be reported to psychologists for therapy instead of huge corporal punishment alone. This is because the reasons for some of these behaviours are psychological and as such require psychological interventions in addition to their sentence.

Keywords: Personality Traits, Retaliation, Criminal behaviour, Inmates, Agodi prison