Psychological profile of Malaysian female prisoners

Nurul Hazrina Mazlan¹ and Affizal Ahmad²

¹School of Health Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia.

²Forensic Sciences Program, School of Health Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 16150 Kubang Kerian, Kelantan, Malaysia.

*Corresponding author Email: affizal@kb.usm.my

Accepted 11 July, 2012

Abstract

Females’ pathways to criminality are significantly different from the male. The types of crimes committed by female, their level of violence, and their background are shown to be very different than those of male. Therefore, to make a significant impact on the female offender and her criminal lifestyle, this study aims to identify the psychological profile of female prisoners in a Malaysian prison. The objectives are to identify types of psychological problems among female prisoners, and to compare the differences between groups. A cross-sectional study was designed using a psychological instrument to collect the data. Two groups of participants were formed; the study group consists of female prisoners, and the control group consists of free-living females. Descriptive and statistical analyses were conducted. The findings demonstrated that female prisoners have higher occurrences of chemical abuse, antisocial tendency, thought disturbance, and self-depreciation compared to the free-living females. Chemical abuse and antisocial tendency were found to be significantly higher among Malaysian female prisoners, whereas thought disturbance and self-depreciation were significantly higher among non-Malaysian female prisoners. It can be concluded that the psychological profile of Malaysian female prisoners are consisted of four factors, which are chemical abuse, antisocial tendency, thought disturbance, and self depreciation.

Keyword: Female prisoners, psychological profile, chemical abuse, antisocial tendency, thought disturbance, self depreciation.