In love with a murderer. Why do women date convicted violent offenders?

Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Psychology - Forensic Psychology, Penal System, grade: B, The University of Liverpool, language: English, abstract: The high number of inmates in American prison facilities might explain why thousands of men and women have spouses or partners in jails. Surprisingly, previous literature suggests that there exist women that consciously seek romantic relationships with convicted violent offenders. What type of women are interested in seeking romantic relationship with convicted violent offenders, specifically those who have committed a violent crime resulting in the death of another person? This study investigates, by using an online questionnaire which consists of three questionnaires, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (Bernstein & Fink,1998), the 50 items Personality Questionnaire (Goldberg,1992) and 5 Specific Questions (Burkhardt, 2015), whether particular personality traits predict the desire to choose a dominant partner. Specifically the 5 personal characteristics extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and intellect as predictors of the preference for seeking romantic relationship with convicted violent offenders were examined. This study sought to shed more light on the association between women's past experiences and personality and their interest in seeking romantic relationships with convicted violent offenders. There was a statistically significant weak, positive relationship between women's experiences of physical neglect and sexual abuse and their interest in dating convicted violent criminals. The study also revealed a statistically nonsignificant relationship between emotional abuse and physical abuse in dating convicted violent offenders. The findings are somewhat consistent with the findings of previous research. However, the previous studies purposively included only women who had reported having contacted incarcerated men and entered into romantic relationships while the current study used women from the general population. It is not explicitly clear why women seek romantic relationships with convicted violent offenders, but the literature seems to point to dominance, control, and self-protection. An examination of the relationship between personality traits and interest in dating convicted violent criminals showed weak, negative or positive correlations between conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, emotional stability, and intellect/imagination and women's interest in dating convicted violent criminals.