| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 犯罪防治研究所 === 106 === This study aimed to investigate male and female telecom fraud offender’s self-control and empathy. It also examined the relationship between self-control, empathy, and crime-related background variables. Recently, fraudulent crime has become more frequent, which caused huge losses and drew a lot of societal attention. Nevertheless, there is a lack of related empirical studies on telecom fraud offenders. Therefore, this sort of study is important and can bridge the gaps in literature.
Surveys were conducted with 162 male inmates in a male prison, and 80 female inmates in two female prisons in Taiwan. Variables of self-control, empathy, and background characteristics were constructed based on related survey items.
The results revealed that there are gender differences in male and female telecom fraud offenders’ levels of self-control and empathy. In comparison with female telecom fraud offenders, male offenders had significantly lower levels of self-control and empathy. The findings showed that masterminds had the lowest empathy level and were more likely to be risk-taking, which is one of the major characteristics of low self-control. With regard to crime-related background variables, an early telecom fraud onset was found to be associated with a lower level of self-control. Gender was the most important predictor of telecom fraud offenders’ levels of self-control and empathy.
Based on the research results, policy implications and suggestions for future research are proposed. It suggests that corrective treatment should place more focus on enhancing offenders’ empathy and self-control. In addition, suggestions on telecom fraud offenders’ re-entry, parental skills on child rearing as well as family support are discussed. Since this study only includes adult samples, future research should include juvenile samples to examine whether these findings hold for juvenile samples.
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