Impairments in executive functioning give rise to reduced control of behavior and impulses, and are therefore a
risk factor for violence and criminal behavior. However, the contribution of specific underlying processes
remains unclear. A crucial element of executive functioning, and essential for cognitive control and goaldirected behavior, is visual attention. To further elucidate the importance of attentional functioning in the
general offender population, we employed an attentional capture task to measure visual attention. We expected
offenders to have impaired visual attention, as revealed by increased attentional capture, compared to healthy
controls. When comparing the performance of 62 offenders to 69 healthy community controls, we found our
hypothesis to be partly confirmed. Offenders were more accurate overall, more accurate in the absence of
distracting information, suggesting superior attention. In the presence of distracting information offenders were
significantly less accurate compared to when no distracting information was present. Together, these findings
indicate that violent offenders may have superior attention, yet worse control over attention. As such, violent
offenders may have trouble adjusting to unexpected, irrelevant stimuli, which may relate to failures in selfregulation and inhibitory control