Welcome to EPG Patshahala. I am Dr. Ritu Shaw, Psychologist and Behavioral Skills Trainer, Assistant Professor, Psychology, Amateur University. This module, we will be discussing theories of criminal psychology, prerequisites for the module is the basic understanding of psychology, basics of social psychology, clinical psychology, theories of psychology, history of psychology. The basic objective of this module is to study about the theories of criminal psychology. The first topic in this module is theory development in psychology.
The second topic is theories of criminal behaviour. Under which we will be discussing biological perspective, sociological perspective and overall psychological perspective. Introduction.
Psychology after emergence in 1879 as a scientific field was attempted to be understood and described in various forms. Such forms are known as schools of thoughts and forces in psychology. This is It is difficult to describe behaviour from one perspective and a lot of factors describe and explain the cause of a behaviour.
In this module, an attempt to describe major theories of psychology tested or researched tested and researched by many psychologists from various perspectives will be studied. Learning outcome expected from this module is students is expected to be able to understand various perspectives explaining criminal behaviour. Remember theories of criminal psychology, analyze relation between various perspectives and criminal behaviour.
First topic, Theory Development in Psychology. Apart from having the basic understanding of school of thought and forces in psychology, it is important to understand that psychological research can be distinguished between two sections. research and applied research.
Basic research is aimed at theory development which is more rigorous in nature as in basic research the theoretical support is generally absent. Rather, the aim of basic research is to create theories which can further be used in applied psychology to solve daily life issues and answer basic questions pertaining to behavior. Most of the theory development is a result of basic research. Theories of criminal behaviour. Most of the researchers and researchers and experiments conducted in the past were aimed at theory development as existing body of knowledge was found to be limited and insufficient to explain the reasons of certain specific behaviour.
behaviors. In this section, basic theories are explained which intend to explain criminal behavior. Some of these theories have been widely accepted and are successful in explaining criminal behavior while some might have limited scope and are highly criticized. All the theories have been divided into three subsections according to their perspective, biological perspective, sociological perspective.
An overall psychological perspective. Biological perspective. Biological perspective attempts to explain behavior with respect to the physiological and genetic endurance of individuals. Sheldon's constitutional theory which was given in 1949 explains the basic biological constituents of an individual which decides the personality of individual.
Sheldon's theory as amongst the earliest theories of personality. In the absence of any theory and tools unlike today, Sheldon tried to explain personality with respect to the body type of an individual. According to him, personality is largely a product of the body type of an individual.
of body type or somatotype as he called, which was assumed to be predicting an individual's temperament and crime could largely be predicted and understood through these broad personality types. According to Sheldon, there are three types of personality according to the body type. That is endomorphs which he also called as viscerotonic that is endomorphs have an obese body structure. They have relaxed and jolly temperament, thus are least found to be involved in criminal activities.
Ectomorphs that is cerebrotronic, ectomorphs have a thin body structure, they are introvert and thoughtful. Third is Mesomorphs which is also known as the Matatonic. Mesomorphs have muscular body, they are bold, adventurous and courageous and thus have been found to be mostly involved in criminal activities in the past.
According to Sheldon, mesomorphs have a tendency to show aggressive nature and thus were most likely to become criminals. Jacobs, Brunton, Melville, Brattain and McLemont's chromosomal theory which was given in 1965 explains the chromosomal. reasons which lead to prediction of criminal behaviour. Psychologists and medicine scientists have always tried to solve the nature-nurture controversy. To understand the reason behind specific behaviours, chromosomes have much to do with the hereditary of specific genes, which may lead to specific behaviour.
The in-depth study of chromosome probably started with Jacobs and her colleagues, who studied chromosomes in details and their relation to criminal behaviour. They stated that chromosomal irregularity is linked to criminal behaviour. In normal genetic structures, females have XX chromosome and males have XY chromosome. was observed that some men have an extra Y chromosome leading to having a pair of chromosome as XYY. These men were considered to be extra masculine and therefore are considered to be more aggressive in nature and thus were considered to be involved in crime.
According to them this enhanced aggressiveness may result in increased chances that such men would commit crime. Mark and Irwin's Discontrol Theory which was given in 1970. According to Mark and Irwin, lesions in the brain specifically in the temporal lobe and the limbic system results in discontrol within the brain which may lead to discontrol syndrome. The symptoms of this syndrome include sudden emotional outburst leading to physical acts of violence. It also includes impulsive sexual behavior and frequent violation of law. Such individuals seek pleasure in getting involved into behavior which lead to violation of law.
Sociological Perspectives. Sociological perspective attempts to explain individual behavior as a result of social and cultural interactions and influences. Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay gave the social disorganization theory which was given in the 1900s. Social disorganization theory focuses on effect of urban conditions on criminal intent and behaviour. Clifford and Henry have described a disorganized area as a place where institutions of social control have failed as a governing body.
A place where family, society, school, education system, commercial establishments fail to perform their functions. High rate of unemployment, school dropout rate, unplanned and disorganized households and housing are considered to be indicators of a disorganized society. Clifford and Henry explains that in such disturbed and disorganized places crime will rise because people will experience more of conflict and disappear and in order to compensate for this conflict and disappear criminal activities will increase.
Merton's strain theory which was given in 1938, Merton's strain theory explains poverty and low economic status. status of people as a reason of increased crime rate. He proposed that people from lower economic and underprivileged background have a higher tendency to be involved in crime due to the strain felt by such individuals in the society.
Such people experience strain because they do not have an access to legitimate needs also which keeps them away from achieving valued goals of success in their lives. He argued that while some of these people might be happy with whatever they have and whatever limited they can achieve, but others will turn towards illegitimate means to fulfil their desires and achieve their valued goals. This theory implicates that crime is a function of conflict and strain within people which results from non-achievement of desired legitimate goals. legitimate and valued goals in life and also the means that they choose to reach such goals.
Social theorists argue that social and economic goals are common to people of all economic stratas. But the means and ability to achieve such goals is highly class dependent. While middle and upper class is able to achieve their goals by using legitimate means, lower class is unable to do so and thus is not able to achieve success using conventional means. People from lower economic status can thus choose to lead a life where they accept their conditions and try to use legitimate means to achieve basics of life or choose illegitimate means to fulfill their desiring of achieving and gaining valued goals.
People choosing to use illegitimate means will fall into illegal practices of crime and violence. Now, the theory given by Sutherland which is the differential association theory which is given in the year 1939. Differential association theory explains that criminal behaviour is learned, social interactions of people and their environment teaches them to value. due to which they learn to violate laws.
Sutherland stated that a person will become a criminal and will have criminal intentions if he is exposed to a social environment where they learn values that favour acts of crime. It is the set of values that an individual feel associated to which decide whether they will get involved in criminal acts or not. Another theory given by Becker's which is the levelling theory given in the year 1913. Becker was of an opinion that criminal behaviour results from labelling. If an individual is labelled as criminal then it will promote deviant behaviour and thus the tendency of that individual to become a criminal will increase.
Labelling, according to Becker promotes deviant behaviour due to itself fulfilling proficiency which might not be true but it tends to become reality due to actions of such people. According to Becker, nobody is a born criminal and deviance is not related to genes. According to him, it is a society which attaches this label to an individual and thus it leads to crime. Now the psychological perspective. Psychological perspective explains general cognitive developmental and personality related theories which explain criminal behavior.
The very first theory is Balboa's theory of maternal deprivation which is given in the year. 1944. Balboa stated that early separation of children from their mothers as a reason of criminal behaviour and patterns. According to Balboa, when a child is separated from their mother at an early stage, the child stage then their social development is not complete.
An incomplete social development leads to incompetency in dealing with social issues and thus the child experiences long term issues in developing positive social relations which also leads to anti-social behavioural patterns and thus leads to criminal behaviour. The second theory being given by Isink which is Isink's Biosocial Theory of Crime in 1964. Isink's theory links criminal acts and intentions with cortical and autonomic nervous system activities. which influences the ability of individuals to learn from consequences of their behaviour.
Such individuals have negative consequences experienced during childhood as a part of their socialisation and conscience building. They are unable to learn due to such experiences which results in inclination towards strong antisocial behaviour. Isink also stated that people with high extroversion and neuroticism will show high inclination towards antisocial behaviour.
Next theory is given by Glazer which is called as a choice theory given in the year 1998. Many theorists with the help of experiments and theories have proved that crime is not involuntary in nature. Rather, it is voluntary decision as a result of choice made by an individual which is quoted by Becker in 1760. This was also what Dr. William G. Glazer had to say about crime. Glazer gave the theory of choice and explained that humans decide and plan voluntarily to commit crime. It is a decision that they make out of choice. According to him, There can be many reasons as to why an individual can choose to have a criminal intent.
It may be to gratify his needs, lower or higher level goals. According to choice theory, there are three models of behaviour. Rational actor. In this, an individual plans to commit a crime because they are aware of the resultant penalty and they are aware that they can bear the minimum penalty of that crime.
This is why the small level crime is being conducted by people. Peristalt actor, it explains an individual's uncontrollable desire to commit crime. It's an urge which is not under control.
Thus, an individual commits crime. Such individuals need psychological help. help and they can be easily identified because they generally do not have a need to commit the crime, they generally fail to explain the intent of their act. Most of the criminals found in India who are basically into burglary are found in the Indian to be falling under this category as they do not have an explanation to why they were involved in a particular crime.
Victimized actor, this is when an individual himself has been a victim of similar crime and has faced injustice. There are so many examples in a society which explains the victimized actor. This act is basically to reduce the psychological disturbance and discrepancy that the individual himself has undergone and thus the person person gets involved into criminal activities.
Isink's theory. It is difficult to name Isink's theory because he has given multiple theories that explain and describe criminal behavior. He has given theories not only from purely psychological perspective, but He has also given theories with biological perspective. Isink has emphasized that both environment and neural structure contribute to criminal intent and thus lead to criminal behavior. he concluded that criminal have a unique biological makeup which in specific environmental conditions results in criminal act and behaviour.
It is more of a genetic structure which they are born with and it only leads to crime when environmental factors contribute to it. He has also explained through his personality theory that individual high on extroversion and neuroticism have a high tendency to be involved in criminal acts and behaviour as he believed that both these traits are important. traits result in aggressive personality type and such individuals show high arousal and energy which makes them quick to react to negative situations. According to him, biological aspects also play an important role in criminal behaviour.
Heightened arousal which results from high level of activity of reticular activating system results in criminal behaviour. Psychodynamic theory, psychoanalysis is the second force in psychology which in itself is a school of thought. Psychodynamic theory is a part of psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud is considered as father of psychoanalysis.
Freud has considered developmental stages of a child as a significant predictor of their behaviour. According to him, everyone carries a residue of their childhood experiences, emotional attachments which guides our future actions and behaviours. It also guides how do we view things and relationships around.
Freud explained three important parts of personality. Aid, which is a primitive part of our personality. It controls our basic instincts linked to hunger, thirst, sexual needs. It demands immediate gratification. It is a part of personality which can be completely irrational at times and would just seek to gratify the need somehow.
Super ego. Super ego is the part of personality which is linked to morality. it guides our actions to be under control of morality. It can be called as a moral police of our personality. It is completely driven by values, ethics and morality.
Ego, ego is the third most important part of our personality which creates a balance between id and superego and sets up the boundaries for both of them. Psychodynamic theorists believe that In criminal acts, superego and ego completely takes a backseat and it is only the id which is in action. Thus, morality does not affect criminal minds because their superego is completely suppressed and their id has a complete control which guides them for immediate gratification at any cost.
It causes loss of impulse control in such individuals leading to increased expression of pleasure-seeking drives. In such cases, ego is also completely damaged or suppressed which leads to social immaturity and poor social skills. Thus, healthy development and gratification of needs during childhood while the child is developing leads to a healthy personality. On the contrary, delayed or lack of gratification leads to unhealthy personality. who later found to be involved in deviant behaviors in order to reduce psychological disturbances.
Psychoanalytical perspective also explains that unhealthy expression of unconscious desires and defense mechanisms also lead to criminal intent and behavior. Behaviorism. Theories under the thought of behaviorism contribute significantly to the understanding of crime and criminal behavior. Experiment of Watson and Rayner in 1920 when often Albrecht was conditioned to fear white rat, it was found that conditioning if not specific leads to fear and phobia of similar objects.
While fear and phobia leads to reactions, this also contributes to understanding of human behaviour and thus criminal acts. Other significant theories and experiments conducted by Skinner and Pavlov also lead to the understanding of behavior, which enable criminal psychologists to understand behavior and to be able to create interventions for improving the well-being of criminals and to be able to reintegrate them back to the society. Summary Theory development is a result of basic research.
All theories can be summarized as under biological perspective, sociological perspective and psychological perspective within criminal psychology. Biological perspective attempts to explain behavior with respect to physiological and genetic endurance of individuals. Majorly identified biological theories are Sheldon's constitutional theory given in 1949, Jacobs, Brunton, Melville, Brattain and McLemont's chromosomal theory given in 1965, Mark and Irwin's discontrol theory given in 1970. Sociological perspective attempts to explain individual's behaviour as a result of social and cultural interactions and influences. Major sociological theories identified are Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay's social theory given in 1900s, Merton's strain theory was given in 1938, Sutherland's differential association theory which was given in 1939, Becker's labeling theory given in 1963 and other psychological theories are born. Balboas theory of maternal deprivation given in 1944, Isink's Biosocial theory of crime given in 1964, Glazer choice theory given in 1998 and Isink's theory which is elaborated on to very many aspects of psychology and biology.
Psychological perspective explains general cognitive development and personality related theories which explain criminal behaviour. Thank you.