The investigation of relationships between alcohol-substance use features,temperament and criminal behaviour in a sample of prisoners/sentenced persons in closed penitentiary institution

It is known that drugs and stimulants are used repeatedly due to their pleasurable effects causing physiological and psychological problems of varying severity. The etiology of alcohol-substance use is studied in many researches. The aim of our study is to investigate the relationship between alcohol-substance use features and temperament structure features and criminal behaviors in sentenced persons in a closed penitentiary institution. Our study was carried out with the participation of 200 participants with convicted of criminal offenses in 18-65 years of age in Şanlıurfa No.2 T Type Closed Prison between September 2018 and January 2019. In our study Socio-demographic Information Form, Dependency Profile Index (BAPI), Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego Autoquestionnaire (TEMPS-A) were used. When we evaluate the hypotheses of our study; there was a relationship between alcohol and substance use and the quality of criminal behavior (p=0,015). The mean total scale score of BAPI was found to be higher in the crime group containing violence against people and property. When we evaluate the relationship between temperament structure features and alcohol-substance use features; there was a statistically significant positively weak relationship between irritable temperament structure features and BAPI alcohol-substance use subscale (r=0,305, p=0,004). There was a statistically significant positively weak relationship between cyclothymic and irritable temperament structure features and BAPI severe desire subscale (r=0,253, p=0,02; r=0,328, p=0,002). There was a statistically significant positive correlation between irritable temperament structure features and BAPI total score (r=0,245, p=0,024). When we examine the relationship between temperament structure features and the quality of criminal behaviors, in terms of the features of hyperthymic temperament structure, quality of crime behaviours groups show a statistically significant difference (p=0,01). Hyperthymic temperament structure features were higher in the criminal offense group. According to violence of crime groups, a statistically significant difference was found in terms of depressive and cyclothymic temperament structure features (p=0,009, p=0,012). Depressive temperament and cyclothymic temperament features in the non-violent crime group were significantly higher than the violent crime group. Further studies with larger samples (especially including more female prisoners) and clinical evaluation tools besides the self-report assessment scales to test and explore our preliminary findings.