Violent criminality and self-compassion

This paper reviews and discusses multiple sociological, psychological, and neurological risk factors associated with violent crime and proposes self-compassion, an indicator of positive mental health, as a common link among these variables. Cross-disciplinary findings have implicated neurological abnormalities resulting from exposure to violence, low self-control, lack of social bonds, and self-esteem to violent criminality. This paper contends that self-compassion is associated with each of these variables and discusses current findings that provide evidence for a link between self-compassion and violent crime. Furthermore, this paper discusses an example of an intervention that involves self-compassion. Finally, this paper discusses implications of the link between self-compassion to violent crime and risk factors associated with violent crime. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.