Contact crimes in relation to neuroticism, impulsiveness, conscience formation and intelligence: An exploratory discriminant analysis in juvenile delinquents

Using archival data, we investigate the relationship between the type of crime committed and personality characteristics from a sample of 100 juvenile Dutch delinquents, who had been screened at a bureau for ambulant youth care. Possibly confounding variables such as age, education and family background were controlled for using exploratory non-linear techniques. It appeared that delinquents who had committed crimes that involved victim contact were on average more impulsive, less neurotic and often had a less well developed conscience than those juvenile delinquents who had committed crimes that involved no contact with a victim. The latter were on average less impulsive, more neurotic and more often had a sufficiently or partially developed conscience. The relation with intelligence was inconclusive.