Borderline personality disorder and crime
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by chronic difficulties in maintaining stable interpersonal relationships, severe mood swings, impulsivity, feelings of emptiness, and a tendency to engage in self-harm or substance abuse. Individuals with BPD may be at an increased risk of engaging in criminal and antisocial behaviors, making them overrepresented in prison populations. This is partly due to their emotional instability and impulsive actions, which can manifest in reckless behaviors such as substance abuse and aggressive acts that may lead to legal consequences.
Research indicates that a significant portion of those diagnosed with BPD also experience other mental health issues, including depression and anxiety, which can exacerbate their symptoms. The disorder is particularly complex, often rooted in psychosocial factors like trauma or neglect during development, leading to intense fears of abandonment and subsequent manipulative behaviors. These behaviors can include self-harm and suicidal threats, which, while aimed at preventing abandonment, can result in life-threatening situations.
Furthermore, studies show that women are disproportionately affected by BPD, with substantial representation in correctional facilities; estimates suggest that 25 to 50 percent of incarcerated women may have the disorder. Understanding BPD's impact on behavior and relationships is essential for addressing the needs of affected individuals and the challenges they may pose in forensic settings.
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Subject Terms
Borderline personality disorder and crime
Definition Disorder in which personality characteristics are maladaptive in nature, including chronic difficulties in maintaining stable interpersonal relationships, severe mood swings that are reactive in nature, impulsivity, hostility, feelings of emptiness, and propensity to abuse drugs and alcohol and engage in self-harm behaviors.
SignificancePersons with borderline personality disorder are at high risk for engaging in criminal and antisocial behavior and tend to be overrepresented in prison populations. Because of their often violent and aggressive demeanor, such individuals are extremely disruptive to forensic settings and tend to pose additional risks to themselves and others when placed within these environments.
It has been estimated in a 2008 study by the US-based National Institutes of Health (NIH) that 5.9 percent of the US population qualifies for a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD) based on the guidelines in the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) . While many studies have shown that a significant percentage of individuals with BPD are found in psychiatric inpatient, psychiatric outpatient, and forensic settings, the NIH study showed that 53 percent of the US population with BPD were women, and anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of those women were in prison populations.
Individuals with BPD exhibit enduring patterns of emotional and behavioral instability. The pervasive and often inflexible nature of their behavior can result in actions that are harmful and sometimes criminal. These erratic behaviors are believed to result from a dangerous combination of extreme affective instability and high levels of impulsivity. Although self-destructive in nature, these behaviors—including reckless driving, sexual promiscuity, substance abuse, and aggressive acts—may result in legal repercussions. People with BPD are highly likely to exhibit symptoms of additional psychopathology and often warrant additional comorbid diagnoses of depression, anxiety, substance use disorder, or other personality disorders that are characterized in the DSM-5 with impulse control and emotional regulation such as narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder.
An intense fear of abandonment, often stemming from psychosocial factors during development (such as sexual abuse, neglect, separation or loss, or parental psychopathology), is believed to contribute to the manipulative behaviors exhibited by persons with BPD. To avoid either real or imagined abandonment, persons with BPD put forth significant effort to thwart others’ attempts to leave them. In these situations, they may engage in flagrantly manipulative behaviors, including significant threats of self-harm or attempts at suicide. These behaviors, although intended to keep others from departing, can result in life-threatening or lethal injuries. In addition to such self-harm behaviors, persons with BPD often engage in self-mutilating acts such as repetitive cutting or burning; most often, they perform these acts on their forearms or legs, but sometimes they may mutilate their faces, chests, or genitals.
In addition to exhibiting unstable behavior, individuals with BPD tend to have extreme difficulty with interpersonal relationships, self-image, and moods. They often report histories of intense but stormy relationships, typically involving severe fluctuations between overidealization of friends or lovers and bitter disappointment, frustration, and disillusionment with these persons, which, at times, may lead to violence. These drastic mood shifts and difficulties modulating and controlling anger can lead individuals with BPD to display intense behavioral and emotional outbursts with little provocation.
Bibliography
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