Citation

Skinner GCM, Farrington DP. Aggress. Violent Behav. 2020; 53: e101431.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.avb.2020.101431

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Offenders outside secure settings form an under-researched and potentially vulnerable group. This study sought to meta-analytically establish whether community offenders, without mental illnesses, die prematurely compared to non-offender community and population comparison samples. Thirty-six studies met our inclusion criteria (N = 1,116,614). Premature mortality is a significant issue for community offenders in general (OR = 3.42), and for ex-prisoners in particular (OR = 4.51). Offenders were more likely to die from unnatural violent causes (OR = 3.97) and natural causes (OR = 2.06) than non-offenders, with a meta-regression revealing that age was not a significant factor (z = −0.01, p = 0.12). These results suggest that the rates of premature mortality previously found for offenders do not just reflect the impact of mental illness on these individuals, but rather that a life of crime may have a significant physiological impact on the body.

Language: en