Personal Characteristics of Men Newly Sentenced to Imprisonment Related to the Time Interval between Two Convictions

<p style="text-align: justify;">The article presents the results of an empirical study conducted on a sample of convicted men serving sentences in places of deprivation of liberty with a second criminal record (70 individuals with a short time interval between crimes and 70 with a long one). The aim of the study is to identify intergroup differences in indicators of delinquency, adaptability, and meaningfulness of life, as well as to establish correlations between these personal characteristics and the time interval between convictions. The research objectives were: 1) to conduct psychodiagnostics using methods from the Psychometrics database, including a combined methodology for assessing delinquency, the Adaptability questionnaire by A.G. Maklakov and S.V. Chermyanin, and the SOHO Test by D.A. Leontiev; 2) to perform mathematical and statistical processing, including comparative and correlation analyses of the data; 3) to identify intergroup differences and verify their reliability. The characteristics of both groups of convicts are presented based on the data obtained. Significant intergroup differences were noted in specific indicators of the three studied integrative personality characteristics. The study shows that a short time interval between convictions is associated with a propensity to violate norms and rules, impulsivity in character, and lower moral normativity, while it is not related to the meaningfulness of life. In contrast, a long interval correlates with a propensity to lie, volitional self-regulation, communicative potential, and an external locus of control over one’s own life.</p>