Attachment styles among a sample of Estonian adult male offenders

The link between offenders' attachment styles and bully-category, as well as violent offending has been assessed empirically in the present study. Estonian adult male (N = 110: 47 of them violent and 63 nonviolent) offenders were required to complete a measure of attachment, namely the Multiple-item Attachment Scale developed by Simpson (1990), and exploring secure, avoidant and anxious/ambivalent styles. Inmates in the high security prison were also required to complete a self-report behavioral checklist - Direct and Indirect Prisoner Behaviour Checklist-Revised (DIPC-R(C) : Ireland, 2002a), that enables inmates to categorize into four groups: pure bullies (N = 16), pure victims (N = 22), bully/victims (N = 47), and those not involved in bullying or victimization (N = 25). A significant difference was found regarding the bully-categories: (1) pure victims reported lower secure attachment scores than the other bully-categories; (2) bully/victims and pure victims reported higher anxious/ambivalent attachment scores than pure bullies and not involved offenders. Additionally, a significant difference was found regarding the violent versus non-violent offender status: violent offenders reported higher anxious/ambivalent attachment scores than non-violent inmates. The present study extends results to a sample of adult male prison inmates suggesting that offenders may share some common characteristics across different prison settings regarding insecure attachment styles as risk factors of prison bullying and violent criminal behavior. (C) 2016 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy.org.uk