EAN: 9783954891610

THE PARADOX OF SELF-HARM IN PRISON PSYCHOPATHY ...

Deliberate self-harm (DSH) refers to intentionally self-inflicted injuries  and is mainly
explained by abuse or neglect  severe psychopathy or at least a trait of a mental disorder.
Most functions of DSH serve intrapersonal motives but interpersonal reasons are also found.
These range from seeking for attention  pity and sympathy  to benefits like care  help or
avoidance of unpleasant tasks or persons. To the latter belongs the deterrence of assaulters  a
benefit  especially desirable for prisoners due to the hostile and brutal environment of
prisons. This book scrutinizes two hypotheses of avoidance of attacks in prisons by the use of
episodes of DSH as costly signals building upon the signaling theory developed in economics and
biology. The first hypothesis is that DSH is an honest signal of fearlessness intended to repel
other inmates from attacking. The second deals with the avoidance of assaulters by signaling
madness via DSH to achieve relocation into an asylum. The underlying motive in this case is the
need of protection  and thus  DSH serves as a cry for help to prison authorities. All necessary
requirements of both hypotheses are examined  provided with evidence from existing research and
analyzed with the help of mathematical models.

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