PSYCHOLOGY OF CRIMINALITY

PSYCHOLOGY OF CRIMINALITY
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Introduction
There is reasonable understanding of what constitute to a crime with variation in respect to historians and cultural dimensions that rule different behaviors as criminal. The task of understanding criminal behavior poses significant challenges, as the development of criminology in the 19th century has seen a variety of theories that might endeavor to comprehend and consequently predict the existence of criminality (Horgan, 2002). There are theories included in criminology which propose the existence of genetic factors, instincts and the physical and mental abnormalities that might distinguish a criminal from a noncriminal. Existences of specific personality disorders have been proposed by other theories, where general traits associated with offenders behaviors, and other approaches suggest that the understanding, acquisition and development of these behaviors with respect to environmental influences.
There are possible contributing factors to criminal behavior complex as much as they are numerous in explanations, which frequently incorporate such factors as; early child rearing practices, the peer group pressure, subversion of self-awareness and self-consciousness to collective authority and character, presence of aggressive cues, frustrations, provocation, substance use, societal structures and influences, social learning and environmental dynamics (Horgan, 2002). The direction of these approaches to understanding criminality problem reflect the treads of persistence of unrealistic to explain the forms of criminality with reference to the exclusive theory of criminal behavior and the complex behavior in linear, static terms. The reality of contemporary theories in understanding criminal behavior does reflect the complexity of criminality, and the acknowledgement of separating conceptual causes of criminal involvement, and the factors that encourage the commission of individual crimes.
The Psychology of Offenders
Different approaches to criminology do not offer satisfactory answers to question posed regarding criminals, but psychological and biological approaches present themselves more successfully. The psychological approaches to criminality have provided searches explaining deviance within an individual far from the society, while biological approach focus on the physical features that are perceived to be predisposing factors of individuals to crime (Giddens & Griffiths, 2006). The psychological approach concentrates on the personality aspects of individual offenders where the settings of ideas regarding psychiatry are influential. The distinctive traits of a criminal have been emphasized which include the feeble mindedness and moral degeneracy, as suggested that abnormal mental state is inherited, and can be a predisposing factor for an individual to commit a crime in the process of socialization. There are sugges...