Psycological theories of crime PDF

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This is some information I used to do a group presentation on a few Psychological theories of crime. ...

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Why do individuals commit crimes? Why is crime present in our society? The criminal justice system often concerns itself with these questions. Criminology is the study of crime from a social perspective, which includes examining who commits crimes, why they commit them, their impact, and how to prevent them. Criminal behaviour theories involve three categories of factors: psychological, biological, and social. Human behaviour is the product of complex interactions among many factors. The psychological theories of crime state that criminal behaviour is a result of individual differences in the thinking processes. It focuses on the association between intelligence, personality, learning, and criminal behaviour. There are four basic ideas when it comes to psychological theories of crime that all believe it is the person's thoughts and feelings that dictate their actions. As such, problems in thinking can lead to criminal behaviour. The general psychological assumptions are that crime is a result of failures in psychological development, learned behaviours of aggression or violence, inherent personality traits and the relationship of criminality to metal illness. The Psychodynamic Perspective Proponents of the psychodynamic theory suggest that an individual's personality is controlled by unconscious mental processes and contends that childhood experiences are crucial in shaping adult personality. The psychodynamic theory is most closely associated with the work of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is a type of psychotherapy that attempts to explore the patient's unconscious thoughts and emotions so that the person is better able to understand themself. Imperative to this theory are the three elements or structures that make up the human personality, i.e. the id, the ego, and the superego. To explain the concept of conscious versus unconscious experience, Freud compared the mind to an iceberg. According to him, only about one-tenth of

our mind is conscious, and the rest is unconscious. Our unconscious refers to that mental activity of which we are unaware and are unable to access (Freud, 1923). Freud theorised that unacceptable urges and desires are kept in our unconscious through a process called repression and suggested that slips of the tongue are sexual or aggressive urges, accidentally slipping out of our unconscious. According to Freud, the id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality that contains all the inherited components of personality present at birth, sexual and aggressive drives, and hidden memories. It directs impulses for hunger, thirst, and sex. Freud believed that the id operates on what he called the "pleasure principle," in which the id seeks immediate gratification. It is often paramount when discussing criminal behaviour. The superego acts as our conscience; it is our moral compass that tells us how we should behave. It strives for perfection and judges our behaviour, leading to feelings of pride or—when we fall short of the ideal— feelings of guilt. The superego serves to pass judgment on the behaviour and actions of individuals (Freud, 1933). In contrast to the instinctual id and the rule-based superego, the ego is the rational part of our personality. It is what Freud considered to be the self, and it is the part of our personality that is seen by others. Its job is to balance the demands of the id and superego in the context of reality; thus, it operates on what Freud called the "reality principle." The ego helps the id realistically satisfy its desires. One can assume that young adults, as well as adults, understand right from wrong. However, when a crime is committed, advocates of psychodynamic theory would suggest that an individual committed a crime because he or she has an underdeveloped superego. The psychodynamic theory suggests that criminal offenders are frustrated and aggravated. They are frequently drawn to past events that occurred in their early childhood. Because of a negligent,

unhappy, or miserable childhood, which is most often characterised by a lack of love and/or nurturing, a criminal offender has a weak or absent ego. It is also argued that youth with weak egos are immature and easily led into crime and violence by deviant peers (Andrews and Bonta, 1994). Research suggests that having a weak ego is linked with low or absence of social etiquette, immaturity, and dependence on others. Research further suggests that individuals with weak egos may be more likely to engage in drug abuse. In their most extreme form, underdeveloped egos (or superegos) can lead to "psychosis" and the inability to feel sympathy for the victims of crime (see DiNapoli, 2002; Seigel and McCormick, 2006). The most significant criticism of the psychoanalytic perspective is based on information derived from therapists' subjective interpretations of interviews with a minimal number of patients (see Englander, 2007). Many other theories of violence have come to stress the importance of family and early childhood experiences. However, it is also important to stress that basic psychodynamic principles have had a significant impact on the subsequent development of criminological thought. Behavioural Theories There is a vast criminological literature that identifies a wide range of environmental factors as causally linked to criminal behaviour. These include developmental, social, and economic factors. A core concept to behavioural theory is conditioning, which refers to a form of learning that involves stimuli and rewards. When a person's actions are reinforced through conditioning, the behaviour is learned. The environment is also a significant factor in the development of behaviours. The behavioural theory also referred to as social learning theory, holds that life

experiences primarily determine actions. Behaviourists argue that people are not born with a violent disposition. Instead, they learn to think and act violently as a result of their day-to-day experiences (Bandura, 1977). Growing up in a household where parental displays of violence are commonplace can shape the behaviour of children to make them more likely to respond to their problems with violent means. While aggression and violence are not synonymous, they are correlated undeniable. Psychologist Albert Bandura demonstrated the importance of social learning in the development of aggressive behaviour. Exposure to a violent role model may operate as a trigger of preexisting psychological and biological factors that predispose that individual to aggressive behaviour. Studies of family life have shown that aggressive children often model the violent behaviours of their parents. Studies have also found that people who live in violent communities learn to model the aggressive behaviour of their neighbours (Bartol, 2002). As a result, behavioural theory directly contributed to the development of social learning theories of deviance. These theories, among the most important and influential of all criminological theories, are subject to a detailed discussion in the section of this report entitled Social Learning and Violence. Cognitive Development and Violence The cognitive theory is based on the idea that cognitive processes are at the centre of behaviours. It is primarily based on the work of Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck, which emphasises what people think instead of what they do. Cognitive theorists have proposed stages of cognitive development that can help explain crime and delinquency. Piaget (1932) was one of the first psychologists to argue that people's reasoning abilities develop in an orderly and logical fashion. He argued that,

during the first stage of development, children respond to their social environment by focusing their attention on exciting objects and developing their motor skills. By the final stage of the development, children have developed into mature adults who are capable of complex reasoning and abstract thought. Theorists argue that offenders have failed to develop their moral judgment capacity beyond a pre-conventional level. Another area of cognitive theory that has received considerable attention from violence researchers involves the study of information processing. Social information processing theory focuses on the way children and often particularly teenagers process information in social situations. Social information processing theory suggests that children with disruptive behaviour problems perceive, interpret, and make decisions about social information in ways that increase their likelihood to engage in aggressive behaviours (Dodge & Crick, 1990). Such difficulties with social processing could be due to a history of attachment problems or the presence of coercive cycles in the home. Recent research also indicates that male rapists often have little sympathy for their victims, but do empathise with the female victims of other sexual offenders. This finding suggests that, because of information processing issues, some offenders cannot recognise the harm they are doing to others (Langton and Marshall, 2001; Lipton et al., 1987). In sum, children with externalising problems seem to exhibit several social information processing problems. They are more likely to attribute hostile intentions to their peers, and they attend to fewer and more hostile cues. They generate fewer and more aggressive responses. Consistent with this perspective, research suggests that some youth who engage in violent attacks on others believe that they are defending themselves, even when they have misinterpreted the level of threat (Lochman, 1987). Finally, they often evaluate aggressive responses more favourably and prosocial responses less favourably—behaviours they may have learned at home.

Personality and Violence Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. The study of personality focuses on two broad areas: One is understanding individual differences in particular personality characteristics, such as sociability or irritability. The other is understanding how the various parts of a person come together as a whole. Despite a welldocumented association between personality disorders (PDs) and violence, the relationship between them is complicated by the high comorbidity of mental disorders, the heterogeneity of violence particularly regarding its motivation, and differing views regarding the way PDs are conceptualised and measured. It remains unclear whether there is a causal relationship between PDs and violence, and what the psychological mechanisms might be that mediate such a relationship. Recent data suggest that personality disorders, especially antisocial and borderline, are strongly related to the manifestation of violent acts. Studies have discovered that the personality traits of hostility, impulsivity, and narcissism correlate with delinquent and criminal behaviour. Furthermore, research conducted by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck during the 1930s and 1940s identified several personality traits that were characteristic of antisocial youth (Schmalleger, 2008). Adolescents who are prone to violence typically respond to frustrating events or situations with strong negative emotions. They often feel stressed, anxious and irritable in the face of adverse social conditions. Psychological testing also suggests that crime-prone youth are also impulsive, paranoid, aggressive, hostile, and quick to take action against perceived threats (Avshalom et al., 1994). Psychopathy and Violence

It may be essential to identify factors that moderate relationships between psychopathy and violence, and to determine the extent to which subcomponents of the syndrome account for the relationships between psychopathy and specific types of violence. Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterised by a constellation of traits including impulsivity, callousness, interpersonal manipulation, and irresponsibility. The psychopathic personality has long been identified as a correlate of antisocial behaviour, and the study of the disorder as a relevant factor in the understanding of persistent criminality has a long history (Pinel, 1801). Numerous studies have identified psychopathy as a reliable predictor of violence across varied populations, and the relationship between psychopathy and violence is well established (Hare, 2003). Psychologists think that several early childhood factors might contribute to the development of a psychopathic or sociopathic personality. These factors include having an emotionally unstable parent, parental rejection, lack of love during childhood and inconsistent discipline. Young children who do not have the opportunity to emotionally bond with their mothers, experience sudden separation from their mothers, or see changes in their mother figures are at exceptionally high risk of developing a psychopathic personality. Intelligence and Violence The central question of IQ-crime studies is whether individuals with less intelligence, on average, commit more crime than those with more intelligence. Criminologists working in the early 20th century often argued that intelligence is strongly associated with criminal behaviour. Donald Lynam and colleagues studied 430 seventh-grade boys in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They measured both IQ and self-reported participation in delinquent acts. Those boys who committed severe delinquent acts scored 8–10 IQ points lower than boys who had not. It was therefore

hypothesised that IQ scores and delinquency were correlated, with the correlation between verbal IQ and delinquency being much stronger than the correlation with performance IQ. The Nature-Nurture Debate Much of the early work linking IQ and crime has been dismissed as overly simplistic and as unsubstantiated owing to poor research designs. However, the issue of a possible association between intelligence and violence has persisted into this century. Much of the contemporary debate centres on whether intelligence is biologically based or the product of environmental conditions. Nature theory holds that intelligence is genetically determined and that low IQ directly causes violent and criminal behaviour. Nurture theorists, on the other hand, argue that intelligence is determined by the quality of the social environment – particularly during childhood – and is not a product of genetic inheritance. Intelligence, they maintain, is primarily determined by the quality of the parental bond, the level of intellectual stimulation received during early childhood, the nature of local peer-group relations, and the quality of neighbourhood schools. Therefore, nature theorists argue that, if IQ scores are indeed lower among violent criminals, this likely reflects differences in environmental or cultural background, not differences in biological makeup (Rogers et al., 2000). The Re-emergence of the IQ-Violence Debate The relationship between intellectual functioning and criminal offending has received considerable focus within the literature. While there remains debate regarding the existence of this relationship, there is a broader consensus that individuals with below-average functioning disproportionately represented. Necessarily, further research into a range of areas including (1) the reason for this over-representation in custodial settings, (2) the existence and effectiveness of

rehabilitation and release programs that cater for lower IQ offenders, (3) the effectiveness of custodial alternatives for this group and (4) what post-custodial release services are needed to reduce the risk of recidivism. Mental Illness and Violence The relationship between mental illness and violence has been the subject of scientific researchfor the past 20 years, during which substantial progress has been made in identifying the risk factors empirically related to violence.1-4 Psychiatrists and other mental health providers now have at their disposal a substantial evidence base and effective risk assessment tools to evaluate a patient's risk of engaging in future violence. Research has focused on the relationship between mental disorders and violence,5-8 b A Note on Substance Abuse and Violence The relationship between drugs, alcohol, and violence has been a recurring theme for social scientists, policymakers, and informed citizens. Drug and alcohol abuse have complicated effects on the human mind and human behaviour; as far back as 1995, the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved described the relationship between substance abuse and violence as a case of "cause and consequence." While television shows and movies featuring drunken bar brawls may seem exaggerated, the sheer volume of research looking at substance abuse and criminal behaviour suggests that substance abuse does play a role in many different forms of violence. The connection between drug addiction, alcoholism, and violence crosses many thresholds and is vitally important in understanding the scope of how controlled substances can affect people.

Research exploring the link between alcohol, drugs, and aggression goes back for decades with hundreds of new studies coming out each year. In 2010, Live Science reported the results of a Scandinavian study that found the risk for violent behaviour increases with intoxication among individuals who are prone to suppressing their feelings of anger while they are sober. Researchers observed a 5 per cent increase in violent behaviour that followed a 10 per cent increase in drinking to the point of getting drunk. People who did not resolve their anger were more likely to get drunk, and that state of drunkenness correlated to a rise in the chance of engaging in violent behaviour. The researchers noted that "only a tiny fraction of all drinking events involve violence," but the likelihood of being violent while drinking appeared based on how well people who drink can deal with their anger while sober. On the other hands, some, have argued that this "disinhibition effect" is culturally specific. Anthropologists have shown that the social effects of alcohol may vary dramatically from country to country. In some societies, people may come to believe that there is a strong relationship between intoxication and violence. If so, some people may come to use alcohol and drugs as an excuse or justification for their violent behaviour. Many have argued that the physiological impact of substance use serves to reduce social inhibitions and thus frees or enables people to act on their violent impulses. Since drinking, alcohol can lower inhibitions, compel risky behaviour, and rob people of their self-control, an individual with unreleased rage, can act out when sufficiently intoxicated. Studies suggest that people are more forgiving of people who engage in violent acts while intoxicated and are less forgiving of people who engage in violence while sober (White, 2004). Policy Implications

Over the past few decades, the psychological perspectives have had a significant impact on crime control and crime prevention policy. Primarily, programs that implement psychological principles and strategies that seek to identify and treat personal problems and disorders before they translate into criminal behaviour. Many argue that the expansion of such psychological services will ultimately reduce the level of violent crime in society (Seigel and McCormick, 2006). Secondary efforts provide psychological treatment after crimes committed, and the offender reprimanded by criminal law, judges often recommend them at the sentencing stage. Once inmates enter a correctional facility, they are likely to be subjected to intense psychological assessment to determine a suitable and just treatment method. Attendance at such programs may also be a mandatory requirement of probation or parole. Considerable debate has emerged concerning the relative effectiveness of rehabilitative efforts within corrections. In contrast, some critics maintain that "nothing works" relating to the rehabilitation of chronic offenders (Griffiths and Cunningham, 2000). Conclusion In sum, psychological theories focus on the identification and treatment of individual traits that may predispose people to violent behaviour. As such, psychological theorists charg...