Psychological Explanations of Criminal Behaviour: A Critical Analysis

This essay delves into the psychological underpinnings of criminal behavior, examining various factors that contribute to the commission of crimes, particularly murder. It explores how different psychological theories, such as those related to psychiatric reasons, childhood experiences, and negative social environments, can explain criminal actions. The essay discusses the types of crimes committed, including personal crimes like homicide, and analyzes psychiatric reasons that lead to such behaviors. It further investigates the impact of adverse childhood experiences and negative social environments on an individual's propensity to engage in criminal activities. The essay critically examines the strengths and limitations of specific theories, providing a comprehensive understanding of how psychology contributes to contemporary understandings of criminal behavior.

Psychological Explanations of Criminal
Behaviour

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Types of crime committed by Criminals.....................................................................................1
Psychiatric Reasons of Criminal Behaviour................................................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Criminal behaviour of a person is known as conduct of an offender that leads the person
to unlawful activity. This is not only about a single issue this is complex concept to understand
with a single mindset. There are different things can lead a person to the psychiatric illness or
criminal and offensive action. There are different fields of psychology are concerned with the
criminal behaviour of the people. The criminology is a field of psychology that is all about the
criminal behaviour of people. The legal systems are more concerned with the the issues that are
leading the people to commit the criminal offence (Stinson, Quinn and Levenson, 2016). There
are purpose is to get more knowledge of psychiatric illness and criminal behaviour to reduce
develop better situations to reduce the crime rate in country. The purpose of this study is to
develop understanding theta can help the legal system to reduce the tendency of people to
commit crime. Various type of criminal acts are mentioned in study to understand the psychiatric
illness that leads the person to the criminal behaviour. This study is briefly describing the
concept of criminal behaviour and various reasons that lead a person to certain offensive
behaviour. Various theories of criminal behaviour also will be explained in report to provide
better understanding about the criminal behaviour of people.
MAIN BODY
Types of crime committed by Criminals
On daily basis different criminal cases are handled by criminal courts. Continuously the
criminal cases are increasing around world and there are some actions are need to be taken in
order to reduce the crime rate in country and international level. In some cases legal authorities
involves Psychiatrists in case to better understand the criminal behaviour of the person. The role
of psychology is important to understand the mentality of person who is committing crime on the
frequent basis. There are different psychological theories that can be used to understand the
behaviour of person to understand the case properly. A criminal offence can be consider as any
kind of antisocial act and these acts are generally illegal in perspective of court. These
psychological theories can be used to set some standards in legal procedures to develop better
legal system in country. There are different act are consider as personal crime which are
committed by person in influence of something or someone. An act of individual in which a
person psychologically or physically harms another person, is considered as personal crime
(Altintas and Bilici, 2018). This personal crimes are considered in two categories which are
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homicides and violent crimes. When a person harms other person and that harm is severe enough
to cause death then the person is charged with different level of criminal charges. For example in
homicides crimes, criminals are charged with first degree murder, vehicular homicide or
voluntary manslaughter.
The other category of personal crime is violent crimes that includes- arson, assault and
battery, child abuse, domestic abuse, kidnapping, rape and statutory. Assault and battery is
considered as the intentional act cause other person in apprehension of immediate harm. The
purpose of this activity is to cause fear in other person. This activity can not be consider as
accident. The mind set of person in this situation can be analysed to implement different
practices that can reduce the cases like this. The battery is completely different from assault. In
case of battery those conditions are considered which are including offensive touching other
people without their consent. Battery is actually considered as act of harming other (Mohler and
Earls, 2018). The offensive touching is required enough to charge a person with charges of
battery.
The case of arson is defined as the condition where the person wilfully and maliciously
burn the property of other person. This is considered as violent crime and considered as felony.
Child abuse is also considered as personal crime. There are many adverse things can influence a
person to commit such crime as child abuse in which they commit harm against child. The
potential abusers in most of the cases are relative, parents, caretaker and coaches of child. This is
considered as one of the most awful act in personal crime. Cause of different issues people act
violently I their house and this leads to domestic violence. Both men and women could be victim
in this scenario. In domestic violence activities are like threatening and harming family behind
closed doors. Kidnapping is also a serious crime that is considered as personal crime. The
purposes of these cases are different. Some times these cases occur due to monetary issue and
sometimes that issues behind this are related to mental illness and revenge. Rape is a crime that s
considered as unwanted sexual intercourse which is accomplished with force and threatening.
These are some cases which are mainly considered as act of violence that are influenced by
different internal and external factors.
Psychiatric Reasons of Criminal Behaviour
Most of time the crime committed by a person is cause of different factors that are related
to the personal, professional and social life. These are main factor which are need to be studied
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to explain the criminal behaviour of individual person. This is important for the medical and
legal authorities to analyse this factors in order to find the impact of these factor on individual
person who has committed a crime (Saxena, Grella and Messina, 2016). By knowing the
personal, professional and social background they can find the possible reason that influenced
the person to commit a crime.
There are many individual factors which are most influential in the decision making of an
person. The actions that are faced by an individual person are most influential for their
psychological behaviour. This action affect the physical and mental situation of individual
person. There are different things are performed by people on different level. The activity
performed by person leaves major impact on their personal life. Some of those unusual things
affect the psychological behaviour of person. By understanding the mental condition of a person
their acts can be easily understood. There are different conditions are faced by people in their
lifetime and these activities or accidents have crucial impact on their psychological behaviour in
rest of their life. There are different conditions that have major impact on the psychology of
individual person.
Adverse Childhood Experience
As per some theories the impact of childhood experience is huge on their mind set and
personal behaviour. Most of people are raised in the conditions which are ideal and do not have
any troubles. This this not possible for children to select a way to grow in society. Most of
people raised in ideal condition which make them enough positive and mentally stable but there
are some people who are raised in the adverse condition which are not good for their future
development. These problems that are faced by children while they are raised in bad condition
have increased risk of criminal behaviour. The risk of criminal risk in this people is also high in
adulthood. Many researches are conducted by people in this situation and result of all these is
nearly similar to other researches (Declercq, Carter and Neumann, 2015). The people who have
adverse childhood have four time more risk of becoming criminal form those children who were
raised in the normal condition. There are some situations which are adverse for children are
mainly measured in 10 different categories. These categories are abuse, neglect, households
adversity, there are mainly three type of abusive condition that have negative impact on
individual child in future and it might lead them to criminal behaviour. Physical, verbal and
sexual abuse are three main abusive conditions that can affect the psychology and mental
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condition of children. For example physical abuse, verbal and sexual abuse has major impact on
individual child. The most critical condition for children in their childhood is to face abuse which
they an not report to other people. In this conditions people feel embarrassed, guilty and ashamed
in this situation.
Some of the children report this acts to other people but they do not consider their
reports. It has negative impact on both physical and mental health of people. The sexual abuse is
considered as the act where the children are used for sexual purpose (Hennessy, 2018). This is
mostly considered as assaultive behaviour that affect children negatively. The main negative
impact of abuse to a children are- it reduce the tendency of child to trust other people. It reduces
their self esteem, this can cause different type of negative feeling in their mind, it can force them
to perform risky activity, it can cause frequent anger behaviour in child. This anger and tendency
to not to trust other can lead the child to criminal activity. This is how abusive conditions faced
by children can affect their mental stability and make them active in criminal activities. There are
also some other problems that can lead the person towards the criminal activity. This acts are
associated with physical and emotional neglecting (de Vogel and Lancel, 2016). This neglecting
behaviour reduce the confidence of children and force them to act angry frequently. There are
also some abusive cases are their that can be adverse for child. Fr example mental illness,
incarcerated relatives, domestic violence, parental separation and substance abuse in children.
From these case most adverse impact is caused by parental separation and substance abuse. This
is how the impact of childhood can develop tendency in children to commit illegal and criminal
activities.
Negative Social Environment
Apart form the childhood experience there are some other factors that can affect the
personal behaviour of individual person. As the human is a social animal and it is their behaviour
to live in society. There is huge impact of social life on behaviour of person. The society is place
where the growth of children occur. They learn different things in the society. The society plays
important role in the development of child. There are different activities are followed by
different people in society and people have tendency to learn new things this can cause both
positive and negative impact on the personality of person. The negative things in social groups
can develop the person as criminal (Nurnberger, Berrettini and Niculescu, 2016). There are
different things encourage the person to commit crime. Poverty and hunger force the person to
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perform criminal activities. There are some social and environmental factors that can affect the
criminal behaviour of a particular person. The main factor that are associated with the criminal
behaviour person. The education level of people, socialization in society, unemployment and
some other factor have negative impact on the behaviour of individual person. Low education
level of person make them less attentive and less aware of consequences of committing a crime.
The conditions like discrimination on the basis of race, age, education level, political views,
personal opinion and gender lead the person to perform different activities. This discrimination
can affect the personal values of person (Anderson, Cesur and Tekin, 2015). This ignorance and
intolerance behaviour can affect the mentality of person and make the, to commit different
crimes.
There are some psychiatric theories are there which are associated to the crimenal
behaviour of people. These theories are concerned with the acts that are responsible to make a
person criminal and force them to commit criminal activities. Some of main psychiatric theories
are-
Rational Choice Theory
There are different choices are made by people in their daily life. The is decisions are
associated with their personal interests. According to this theory the behaviour and decision
making of individual person is based on the rational calculations that is associated with the
personal interest of people. The actions that are performed by people are result oriented. To full
fill their personal needs people aligned their objectives and target to achieve them effectively.
This theory is directly related to the criminal behaviour of people (Caruso, 2016). As per this
theory it can be said that to achieve personal goals people might select wrong and easy way to
full fill their needs. For example stealing, killing, kidnapping and threatening are some criminal
activities that can provide easy money to people. So, they select these offensive action to live
lavish lifestyle and meet their desires.
There are some merits of this theory which are efficiently providing the brief of adverse
and offensive decision made by people (Proctor, Hoffmann and Raggio, 2019). As per this
theory this is common behaviour of people to select most efficient way to gain profit and this is
justifying the acts of criminal. As the acts which are offensive and performed by people
intentionally to get faster results.
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Some of the main demerits of this theory are associated with its limitation. This theory is
not effective to provide better analysis of reason of criminal act that is performed by a person. It
only provides the data which could be possible reason of criminal activity done by a person. Foe
the criminal minded people is it difficult to find correct reasons that are causing offensive issues
to people (Anderson, 2019). This model is more focused on the long term impact of particular
action by do not allow getting immediate data for particular action. It can con be used to
understand complete mindset of person.
Biological Theory of Crime
This theory is completely different form other theories which are providing different
reason which are responsible to become a criminal. But according to this theory. People who are
committing criminal activities are “born criminal“. These people can be differentiated from non
criminal people by physiological differences. Due to some physical and mental disability people
do not have control on their own actions which are offensive and ethically or legally not right.
This is tendency of criminals that they do not have control over their actions. This theory
explains the physical basis for human and animal behaviour (Matejkowski, Conrad and
Ostermann, 2017). The basic concept of these theory is about the physical structure and attributes
of body. For example immune system, brain structure, nervous system and genetics are
considered to analyse the criminal behaviour of person.
There are different features of these theories which are- This theory is based on the
physical evidence of human body that is responsible for the criminal or offensive behaviour of
individual person. The main advantages of this theory are- biological theory of criminal theory is
scientifically correct and provide different proofs of impact of physical structure on the criminal
activity of people. The assets that are used to measured in this theory ca be evaluated again and
again to find more accurate result.
The demerits of there theory are- it is too much focused on the physical and scientific
reasons for the criminal activities of person. But there are some other factors are also associated
with the reasons of criminal acts (Hagan and Daigle, 2018). There are some genetic disorders are
there which cannot be taken as reasons for criminal acts of people. The concepts that are used in
this theory are not constant for all people and physical structure is not enough to justify the
offensive act of an person.
Twin studies and crime
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It is already proved that the genetics factors are mainly responsible for the criminal
behaviour of individual person. These factor ar mainly comes from three different sources which
are- Family, Twins and Adoption studies (Warburton and Stahl, 2015). As pre this theory two
identical twins are analysed for the criminal behaviour. Both are identical and these study is
based on the genetic code of those twins. This study is performed to analyse the role of
environment and family in the criminal behaviour of people. There are some limitations of this
theory because this is only limited to the study of the people who are identical twins and have
similar characteristics. This is not applicable for the people who are alone child of their parents.
Brain Chemistry
The brain chemistry is a theory which is related to the chemical characteristics of human
mind. In human brain serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is responsible for the changes in the
mood of individual person. Role of this neurotransmitter can be consider important in the study
of the criminal mind of people (Long, Fitzgerald, and Hollin, 2015). This can affect the mind set
of people and can encourage them to perform criminal acts. For example in males Testosterone
hormone is related to the aggression and omega 3 is responsible for the lower level of aggression
in people. In this concept the criminal behaviour of people is associated with the level of
nutrition of people. According to this theory the eating habits are responsible for chemical
reactions in brain and that can lead to development of criminal behaviour.
Strain Theory
This is one of the best psychological concept that is related to criminal behaviour of
person. People have different desires which are related to material goods, better lifestyle and
education. If people do not find any possible way to full fill that need then it can cause negative
impact on their motivation level. This demotivation make them feel low (Huggins, 2017). And as
they found any easy way to full fill their needs than they easily get attracted to this negative
things and commit criminal acts,
CONCLUSION
This report is concluding different reasons which are responsible to make a person to
commit criminal offense. There are different theories has been learned in this process to evaluate
the behaviour of people. Various factors are associated with the criminal behaviour. Various
factors has been analysed and studied to know their impact on the mind set of individual level.
The different conditions that are responsible to make a person criminal has beed studied in
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report. The scientific concepts of criminal mind set theory has been evaluated to know the impact
of physical structure on behaviours of a preson.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Altintas, M. and Bilici, M., 2018. Evaluation of childhood trauma with respect to criminal
behavior, dissociative experiences, adverse family experiences and psychiatric
backgrounds among prison inmates. Comprehensive psychiatry. 82. pp.100-107.
Anderson, D.M., Cesur, R. and Tekin, E., 2015. Youth depression and future criminal behavior.
Economic Inquiry. 53(1). pp.294-317.
Anderson, G., 2019. Biological influences on criminal behavior. CRC Press.
Caruso, G.D., 2016. Free will skepticism and criminal behavior: A public health-quarantine
model. Southwest Philosophy Review. 32(1). pp.25-48.
de Vogel, V. and Lancel, M., 2016. Gender differences in the assessment and manifestation of
psychopathy: Results from a multicenter study in forensic psychiatric patients.
International Journal of Forensic Mental Health. 15(1). pp.97-110.
Declercq, F., Carter, R. and Neumann, C.S., 2015. Assessing psychopathic traits and criminal
behavior in a young adult female community sample using the Self‐Report Psychopathy
Scale. Journal of forensic sciences. 60(4). pp.928-935.
Hagan, F.E. and Daigle, L.E., 2018. Introduction to criminology: Theories, methods, and
criminal behavior. Sage Publications.
Hennessy, J., 2018. Criminal Behavior. Routledge.
Huggins, J.T., 2017. Relationship Between Malingering and Suicidality in Forensic Psychiatric
Patients (Doctoral dissertation, Fordham University).
Long, C.G., Fitzgerald, K.A. and Hollin, C.R., 2015. Women firesetters admitted to secure
psychiatric services: Characteristics and treatment needs. Victims & Offenders. 10(3).
pp.341-353.
Matejkowski, J., Conrad, A. and Ostermann, M., 2017. Does early onset of criminal behavior
differentiate for whom serious mental illness has a direct or indirect effect on
recidivism?. Law and human behavior. 41(1). p.68.
Mohler, B. and Earls, F., 2018. Social selection and social causation as determinants of
psychiatric disorders. In Crime and Social Organization (pp. 129-140). Routledge.
Nurnberger, J.I., Berrettini, W. and Niculescu, A.B., 2016. Genetics of psychiatric disorders. In
The medical basis of psychiatry (pp. 553-600). Springer, New York, NY.
Proctor, S.L., Hoffmann, N.G. and Raggio, A., 2019. Prevalence of substance use disorders and
psychiatric conditions among county jail inmates: Changes and stability over
time. Criminal Justice and Behavior. 46(1). pp.24-41.
Saxena, P., Grella, C.E. and Messina, N.P., 2016. Continuing care and trauma in women
offenders’ substance use, psychiatric status, and self-efficacy outcomes. Women &
criminal justice. 26(2). pp.99-121.
Stinson, J.D., Quinn, M.A. and Levenson, J.S., 2016. The impact of trauma on the onset of
mental health symptoms, aggression, and criminal behavior in an inpatient psychiatric
sample. Child abuse & neglect. 61. pp.13-22.
Warburton, K.D. and Stahl, S.M., 2015. Treat the treatable: a comprehensive and optimistic
approach to treating psychiatric violence. CNS spectrums. 20(3). pp.170-171.
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