Psychology is the study of people of
how they think, act, react and interact with others. It’s a discipline that
aims to understand a person’s behavioural patterns and the motivations,
thoughts and feelings behind them.
In Blackburn’s (1993) assessment,
historically psychology and psychiatry have played an important role in the
development of criminology. Unlike the sociological explanation of crime,
psychological explanations distinctively focus on the individual but they
cannot ignore sociological theories and approaches as well.
Psychologists have to come to a consensus
that there is a nature vs. nurture debate in crime. By nature, this includes biological
factors which can be hereditary and also brain structures and functions. By
nurture, this includes society, how criminals socially integrate, the cultures
they adhere to and the environment they dwell upon. The criminal is largely
seen as a person with psychological defects that is prone to crime depending on
how they are nurtured within society.
The Criminal Psychologist- Their role is to identify why the
individual lacks moral values and performs crimes by understanding their
behavioural patterns, insecurities and what patterns, motivations and feelings
are occurring within the individual as they perform and are led to crime.
Ainsworth (2000) - Notes that there is no definitive or
inclusive definition of the psychological theory of crime.
Freud (Ego/Super Ego) - The classical psychologist Freud believed that personality
is determined by innate drives and early experiences. Thus the individual is prone to crime due to
an abnormal development of the psyche. The Super Ego is the moral regulator of
behaviour it punishes the ego with anxiety when an act is committed that is
immoral. A weak super ego can thus be developed from abnormal relationships
within the family. Thus a person gives into their passions or ego and commits a
criminal act to satisfy their desires.
Psychological Studies/Evidence of
Crime and Deviance
Bio-Psychology- Studies
conducted suggest biologically the best studies of XYY males indicate that they
are more prone to aggressive behavior than XY males. Apparently the extra Y makes them more masculine having more
violent tendencies.
Schlapp and Smith- The production of hormones can
affect both physical and mental processes within the individual making
them more prone to crime. For example, males with high levels of testosterone
are psychologically more prone to crime.
Mc Guire (2004) - Explains that offenders largely tend to suffer from mental disorders.
This means they are different from the norm and not psychologically normal
making them prone to crime in certain situations. The psychologist however
criticizes their own judgement due to the difficulty of defining such mental
disorders. However examples of Psychopathology and offending behaviour are noted
by Blackburn (1998) which includes:
- Schizophrenia
- Mood
Disorders
- Personality
Disorders
- PTSD
Farrington (1992)
- Explains that offending is closely
linked with life course. So people are psychologically affected depending on
what experiences they adhere to on their social and psychological development
in life. The peak age in males is at 15 and females 18. Around this age a
person’s intellectual and moral development is still being constructed and they
are more likely to be psychologically unstable due to the fact that they are
going through a lot of biological changes and adapting to them for example
during puberty.
- Peak age of offending; Male 15/ Female 18.
- People that have criminal records are more likely to be
more anti-social that one’s without.
- Troubleness at school, higher likelihood of future
offending.
- Predictors of offending;
Blackburn (1998) – Explains that delinquents display a
development mental delay in understanding moral maturity than non-delinquents
which can be seen as the differentiation of why people perform crime and why
some don’t. This largely supports Farrington’s concept as maturity also seems
to develop with time and age.
Social Learning Theory
There seems to be a distinctive link
between the media and crime. Those who witness it on T.V can be fascinated by
it which can then in turn become psychologically or mentally normalised within
their minds. The glamorisation of crime in the media showing people with power,
status and wealth can push the criminal personality into individuals that seek
such glamour.
Sutherland (1939) suggested that there
were two prerequisites for a person to develop into an offender. They need to learn a set of values and
attitudes that support offending, and they need to learn specific behaviours
for committing crimes. These are all
learned within the family and peer group. However, in our postmodern society,
crime rates are high because of the popularity and fascination of it which the
media portrays.
Williams’s 1986 Later studies
examined children’s levels of aggression before and after the introduction of
television into an isolated community.
Williams found that over a two year period aggression in this
community’s children rose steadily. This shows that aggression is a learnt psychological
trait and television is the new way of socialisation where crime is largely
focused on by the media.
Conclusion
·
It cannot
predict criminality by studying personality or biological supposed criminal
traits. (Williams, 2004)
·
It fails to
recognise that the individual is a social construction by society’s organic and
collective consciousness argued by sociologists such as Emile Durkheim.
·
There is an
uneasy relationship between psychology and crime. For example the ability to
plead insanity for an offence is valid and acceptable in the courtroom with
enough evidence to support.
·
Making
generalisations about crime as a whole in society is incredibly difficult due
to the many factors that affect the individual such as “free will”, “moral
values” and “social strains or stress.”