Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 20, No. 2, April 2007, pp. 183–196 ( C  2007) Intrusive Memories and Ruminations Related to Violent Crime Among Young Offenders: Phenomenological Characteristics Ceri Evans Department of Psychological Medicine,St. George’s Hospital Medical School, London, UK Anke Ehlers Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, UK Gillian Mezey Department of Psychological Medicine,St. George’s Hospital Medical School, London, UK David M. Clark Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, UK Very little is known about the nature of perpetrator’s memories of violent crime. The authors conducted semistructured interviews with a representative sample of 105 young offenders convicted of serious violence, assessing intrusive memories, ruminations, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder related to their violent crime. Forty-eight (46%) participants described significant intrusive memories of the assault, and 38 (36%) reported ruminations related to the assault. Ethnic origin and historical variables explained 19% of the variance of posttraumatic stress disorder symptom severity; intrusion and rumination characteristics added an additional 48% explained variance. The intrusive memories tended to concern the moment when the event turned for the worse for the perpetrator. The findings have implications for risk assessment and therapeutic interventions for violent offenders. Very little is known about memories of violent actions. Some recent studies on selected populations have sug- gested that the commission of a violent crime may lead to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Kruppa, Hickey, & Hubbard, 1995; Spitzer et al., 2001). However, there is a lack of data on (a) the extent to which violent offenders report distressing memories of the offence, and (b) the phe- nomenology and content of these memories in unselected populations of violent offenders. This study presents the Ceri Evans is now at the Medlicott Academic Unit of Forensic Psychiatry, Hillmorton Hospital, Canterbury District Health Board, Christchurch, New Zealand, and is Clinical Senior Lecturer at the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Otago, Private Bag 4535, Christchurch, New Zealand. Anke Ehlers is supported by a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Ceri Evans, The Medlicott Academic Unit of Forensic Psychiatry, Forensic Psychiatry Services, Hillmorton Hospital, Private Bag 4733, Christchurch, New Zealand. E-mail: ceri.evans@cdhb.govt.nz. C  2007 International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jts.20204 results of structured interviews with a large representative sample of young offenders convicted of a serious violent crime. The interviews concentrated on two types of dis- tressing intrusive cognitions: unwanted intrusive memo- ries and ruminations. Posttraumatic stress disorder theo- rists have suggested that intrusive memories in which the individual reexperiences part of the traumatic event are functionally distinct from intrusive thoughts or rumina- tions about the trauma that do not represent reexperiencing 183