Psychology of Criminal Behaviour

In an important 1984 paper, “The Moral Education Theory of Punishment,” Jean Hampton justifies the practice of inflicting painful criminal punishments if and only if punishment is morally educative. Hampton’s suggestion forms the point of departure for this paper on Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Below, I show that Dostoevsky agrees with Hampton that punishment should aim at moral reform; however, Dostoevsky presents no evidence that self-punishment or legal punishment reliably cultivates respect for law, legal authority, oneself, or for others as moral agents. Instead, Dostoevsky’s post-Siberian writings are highly critical of Russian criminal justice, and emphasize that moral education comes through dialogue, reflection, and criticism. This highly individualized treatment may be experienced as painful, but it does not have to result from, and it may even be impeded by, legal “hard treatment.”
Keywords: moral education; punishment; Dostoevsky; rehabilitation; crime

The aim of the present study was to examine to what degree different mechanisms of moral disengagement were related to age, gender, bullying, and defending among school children. Three hundred and seventy-two Swedish children ranging in age from 10 to 14 years completed a questionnaire. Findings revealed that boys expressed significantly higher levels of moral justification, euphemistic labeling, diffusion of responsibility, distorting consequences, and victim attribution, as compared with girls. Whereas boys bullied others significantly more often than girls, age was unrelated to bullying. Moral justification and victim attribution were the only dimensions of moral disengagement that significantly related to bullying. Furthermore, younger children and girls were more likely to defend victims. Diffusion of responsibility and victim attribution were significantly and negatively related to defending, while the other dimensions of moral disengagement were unrelated to defending.

Stereotypes and hate crimes are complex issues. Stereotypes are not only harmful in their own right; they do damage by fostering prejudice and discrimination. A well established stereotypes can also lead to the feeling of hate towards a particular groups or community resulting to hate crime many a times. More specifically, "personal discrimination" refer to acts of discrimination committed by individuals whereas "institutional discrimination" refers to discriminatory policies or practices carried out by organizations and other institutions. The paper briefly reviews some literature concerning these cause of discrimination, psychology of hate crimes through the lens of Freudian psychoanalysis, Gauffman's idea of Dramaturgy, psychological result of hate crimes, its impact on victims and vulnerable groups. Most people who perpetuate stereotypes don't resort to hate crimes. But they're contributing to a climate where hate crimes become possible. But do hate crime only the result of stereotypes? Or is this theory also related to the concept of sins? Or killing ones who are being hated by a particular community is a shortcut way to heaven? There are many such questions followed with the act of hate crimes. Will try to resolve this. But before heading towards the understanding of Freudian psychoanalysis, we should first know what is the concept of psychology all about.

Morality is the key psycho-philosophical faculty of the human mind that enables an individual to take right moral decisions and thus exhibit a moral behaviour. Moral behaviour is the act that is valued by an observer as right or good which effectively results in a common good. The concept of morality and moral behaviour has been pondered upon by various philosophers and psychologists and there are numerous views and theories on the nature of morality. However a moral action is said to be so in terms of its reference with its desirability in the society or to the significant other. Various researchers have found that there is an inverse relation between criminality and morality. Accordingly the rate of increase of criminality in the world population is a direct indicator of the decline of morality. In the Indian context too the alarming increase of the crime rates and incidents of harm towards individuals signals to the fact that moral orientation in the Indian population is facing a notable shift that needs to be viewed seriously. The present study in its co-relational review form delineates the crime rates in India in the context of Morality.

Mutuality between handwriting and individual's inclination toward crime is an area of profound fascination. It is challenging to enter the most hidden corners of an abnormal mind in order to discover, understand and explain its resorts, and also to provide clues regarding the way of approaching, treating and planning rehabilitation. In India and other common law countries, insanity is exempted from punishment even if insanity leads to the person committing heinous crimes; because they are considered incapable of deciding the rightness or wrongness of an act. Therefore, it is crucial and imperative to understand the reason behind the antisocial crime and associated factors influencing personality of the offenders especially psychopaths. Forensic graphology and psychiatry are the two major disciplines involved in assessment of psychopathic tendencies and criminality. Both the approaches follow projective nature to analyse and get into deepest of the personality of an individual. Forensic is a punitive science concerned with the passing judgement on human conduct while psychiatry is a therapeutic and reformative science followed for the benefit of society, human rights and psychopaths. Though the two approaches assess personality from different perspectives, when applied together can give a more effective and holistic explanation of criminal behaviour. The present paper describes some important techniques of handwriting analysis and highlights common handwriting patterns of psychopaths.

In this research study, eyewitness testimony and specifically inconsistencies in eyewitness testimony was investigated. To determine if inconsistencies in eyewitness testimony influenced juries’ verdicts, a study with 227 participants was done. In this study, the participants were each given one of three transcripts of a trial. Each transcript was identical except for the portion that talked about the eyewitness testimony. In that portion, there was one of three possible scenarios presented; no eyewitness testimony, consistent eyewitness testimony, or inconsistent eyewitness testimony. After the transcript had been reviewed, each participant was asked to decide on the defendant’s guilt or innocence, and they were given a questionnaire to fill out. The questionnaire asked about their confidence in their verdict as well as other questions regarding components of the trial and their own thought process. To analyze these results, a one-way ANOVA test was run as well as a post-hoc test, Tukey’s HSD (F(2, 227) = 6.33, p = .002, ƞ2= 0.05). The results showed that there was a significant difference between the guilt ratings for our participants in the eyewitness group versus the refuted eyewitness group, and we also found a small relative effect size. No other significant difference between the three groups were found. This means that the mock jurors did not rate guilt differently when there was no eyewitness versus having a consistent eyewitness. The participants also didn’t rate guilt differently when there was a refuted eyewitness versus no eyewitness at all.

(This paper was completed for an Experimental Psychology Class during the Fall 2016 semester.)

Nigel Akkara is a businessman and actor in Kolkata, India. But as a teenager he went astray reaching the abyss of crime and then underwent an extra-ordinary transformation. He was
arrested in 2000 and charged with crimes ranging from murder, extortion, and kidnapping.While confined at the Presidency Correctional Home in Kolkata, India, he redefined his life with a positive goal and vision through culture therapy under the tutelage of noted Indian classical dancer Ms. Alokananda Roy. The present article aims to analyze the socio-criminological factors that lead him to deviate from the conventional path. The article is based on both primary and secondary data.

Within the National Security domain there is a convergence of security responsibility across the national security agencies, law enforcement and private security sectors. The sensitivity of this environment requires individuals operating in the domain to be honest, trustworthy and loyal. Personnel vetting is a formal process used to determine an individual's suitability for access to this domain. Notwithstanding this process, significant breaches of trust, security, and corruption still occur.

Answering the most debatable question in the world of criminology, how people turn to a criminal is quite difficult. Many arguments were established; many researches were conducted; many criminologists have tried countless ways to determine the causes of delinquency but still, remain questionable. In the search for how people become criminal, the author becomes interested in William Sheldon's theory, a theory that associates the physique to delinquency. Does size really matter?, this study aims to reexamine the claim of Peralta (2014) that common violators of crime are the mesomorphs' physique, and to determine whether the crime committed by the mesomorph detainees fits to Peralta (2014) claims. A documentary analysis research design was applied in the study conducted in Marinduque Provincial Jail. Records of detainees specifically Body Mass Index (BMI) to identify the detainee's somatotype and offenses committed were gathered. The Percentage frequency distribution was used to identify the type of somatotype of the detainees, and a Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit Test to determine whether the crime committed of mesomorph detainees fits or matches to the claim of Peralta (2014) was used as statistical treatment. Based on the findings presented, the result of the study is almost the same with the theory of William Sheldon and the claim of Peralta (2014) which states that the common violators of law are in the mesomorph type and less in the ectomorph type. It is also, therefore, concluded that the crime committed of the mesomorph detainee's matches/fits to the result of Peralta (2014) study. The result of the study in the related literature is therefore concluded that somatotype or physique can be an indication of future criminal behavior. In the end, this study proves and supported the claim that mesomorph can be one of the factors on how people become criminals. Therefore the Provincial Jail Management may be recommended to include the William Sheldon classification of body type in their profile or record to easily distinguish the type of somatotype of a person, which could be the indication of their future behavioral actions. The future researcher may have a study about the nature of a person with a mesomorph body type to determine the possible factors or to have a clear understanding of why most detainees who commit an offense have a mesomorph body type.

Within the National Security domain there is a convergence of security responsibility across the national security agencies, law enforcement and private security sectors. The sensitivity of this environment requires individuals operating in the domain to be honest, trustworthy and loyal. Personnel vetting is a formal process used to determine an individual’s suitability for access to this domain. Notwithstanding this process, significant breaches of trust, security, and corruption still occur. In psychology, resilience is a well researched phenomenon that is considered a multidimensional construct where individual attributes, family aspects and social environment interact in aiding individuals to deal with vulnerability. There are many understandings and definitions of resilience based on theorists ’ different perspectives; however, most agree that resilience is represented by a minimum of two aspects. The first is adversity and second, how the individual deals with adversity that d...

This study examines the prevalence, types, and reasons of academic dishonesty among a sample of 106 college students. A mixed methodology was used in order to obtain the required data. An experimental observation was done to know the prevalence of cheating behavior in experimental settings. A standardized self-report instrument was used to study the prevalence of types of academic dishonesty behaviors that the students are engaged in and focus group discussions were carried out to explore the reasons for academic dishonesty behavior from the student perspective. Results: The prevalence of cheating behavior of students in the experiment is 61.6 % and 75% from faculty and student perspective respectively. The self-reporting survey showed 93.4% of students engaging in academic dishonesty. Findings suggest that taking help from external sources, plagiarism, lying, and cheating in the examination were admitted as the most prominent behaviors with 76.4%, 72.6%, 50.9%, and 55.7% involvement respectively. Parental expectations, conformity, taking up courses due to external influence like parental choice or societal pressure, high competition in getting grades, reservations in education are found as the most vital reasons for students involving in academic dishonesty.

Within the National Security domain there is a convergence of security responsibility across the national security agencies, law enforcement and private security sectors. The sensitivity of this environment requires individuals operating in the domain to be honest, trustworthy and loyal. Personnel vetting is a formal process used to determine an individual's suitability for access to this domain. Notwithstanding this process, significant breaches of trust, security, and corruption still occur.

Within the National Security domain there is a convergence of security responsibility across the national security agencies, law enforcement and private security sectors. The sensitivity of this environment requires individuals operating in the domain to be honest, trustworthy and loyal. Personnel vetting is a formal process used to determine an individual's suitability for access to this domain. Notwithstanding this process, significant breaches of trust, security, and corruption still occur.

Purpose: The present study aims to understand whether investigation and crisis intervention processes can be coupled together in suicide attempt cases in order to mitigate secondary victimisation and whether a social worker as an interventionist can accomplish this.

Our research project is framed as biosocial analyzes of the etiology of criminal behavior. This research can be characterized as a conceptually and methodologically innovative attempt to connect the research areas that so far have not been considered together in one project. The research project is based on three components: sociological, psychological, and biological. The main aims of the article are to initiate and facilitate debate concerning the interaction between factors belonging to a variety of different areas and provide an interdisciplinary approach to the study of criminal behavior etiology. A discussion over proveniences of criminal behavior is needed both to enrich consciousness and knowledge about conditions lying under criminal behavior and to reshape practical solutions in the field of social rehabilitation. The article also concerns our methodological and ethical reflections coming from our pilotage project involvement.

Keywords: criminal behavior etiology; biosocial criminology; GxE; aggressive crime.

La teoría de la mente es la capacidad de inferir, predecir y atribuir estados mentales a otras personas. Este constructo ha sido estudiado desde numerosas patologías, como el autismo, la esquizofrenia y el síndrome de Down. Estudios recientes han mostrado que las alteraciones de la teoría de la mente pueden ser observadas en los diferentes cuadros clínicos deriva-dos de alteraciones del lóbulo frontal, como la personalidad antisocial. Algunos autores plantean que un aspecto esencial de la teoría de la mente es la empatía. Sin embargo, este constructo no ha sido estudiado en población normal colombiana con conductas violentas y delictivas que han estado vinculadas al conflicto armado. Este artículo tiene como propósito describir algunas características de la ToM en sujetos que estuvieron vinculados al conflicto armado en Antioquia con manifestaciones sintomáticas relacionadas con comportamientos violentos y delictivos. Palabras clave: Teoría de la mente, empatía, procesamiento emocional, comportamiento violento.
Abstract
The Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to infer, predict, and attribute mental states to others. This construct has been studied for many illnesses, such as autism, schizophrenia, and Down syndrome. Recent studies have shown that an impaired ToM can be observed in various clinical conditions resulting from alterations of the frontal lobe, such as antisocial personality. Some authors argue that an essential aspect of the ToM is empathy. However, this construct has not been studied in Colombian normal population with violent and criminal behaviors that have been linked to an armed conflict. This paper aims to describe some characteristics of the ToM in subjects who were involved in the armed conflict in Antioquia, with symptomatic manifestations related to violent and criminal behavior.

Millions of people worldwide, even in countries once considered relatively safe, seem to have a haunting fear of crime and violence in recent times. The once cherished sense of personal safety appears antiquated and national security is being supplanted by deep anxiety and global terrorism. According to UNICEF report, 2008 about the state of children and crime, increasing numbers of young Nigerians are getting involved in criminality. Although juvenile delinquency is an age long problem, the juvenile delinquency of the past cannot be compared with that of the present era. Almost every society from the dawn of history has looked at this menace as issue of common concern because it touches all aspect of human life: The family, government, religion institutions, and other stakeholders. Thus, a complete new strategy is required to successfully diminish crime rates among youth population and salvage our youth from destruction. The Growing concerns over the increasing juvenile crime rate have sparked extensive research into various factors that may lead young adults to engage in illegal behavior. George (2007) observed that over the past ten years, the number of juvenile courts cases handled has more than doubled in West Africa. The rise in destructive acts amongst youths seems to be evident in school dropout rates, teenage pregnancies, drug abuse and quite apparently substantial increase in teenage crimes committed.

The survey data measure the tendencies of cognitive self-control and deviant act behavior as a component to identify the personality factors as predictors of criminal behavior. It studies the impact of personality against the extended psychological factors which help in the predisposition of youth towards such behavior. Participants in the study were 130 Indian college-going students in the age group of 18-27 yrs. The correlation analysis has revealed that four out of five personality domains have shown a clear negative correlation towards the dimensions of deviant acts and cognitive abilities. But the dimensions measured against the factors risk-seeking, impulsivity, and physical activity have shown a clear positive relation. The regression analysis has confirmed that the domains Neuroticism and Agreeableness have accounted for 25.4% of the variance in predicting the cognition controls to criminal behavior and 3.6% of the variance in predicting the deviant act behaviors. These findings then extend to understand the concepts associating between personality and self-control and behavioral measures as indicators of criminal behavior.

The practice of black magic is a phenomenon of a magical or metaphysical evil (crime).. Because its existence is beyond common sense, magical crimes are difficult to prove. In this paper, we will examine the phenomenon of metaphysical crime which resulted in a criminal act of violence against a child by his family, in Gowa, Makassar, South Sulawesi. The assessment is based on the criminological aspect with a clauseal and normative approach. This study will examine cases from four aspects that are the object of study in criminology, namely aspects of social formulation, perpetrators, victims, and social reactions. This study will also discuss the role of criminal psychology in identifying perpetrators of violence.

Within the National Security domain there is a convergence of security responsibility across the national security agencies, law enforcement and private security sectors. The sensitivity of this environment requires individuals operating in the domain to be honest, trustworthy and loyal. Personnel vetting is a formal process used to determine an individual's suitability for access to this domain. Notwithstanding this process, significant breaches of trust, security, and corruption still occur.

ABSTRACT. In this article we call into question the binomial of sadomasochism defended in general by freudian psychoanalysis. We propose in its place the independency of these two expressions of perversion, based on the study and analysis of the works of the Marquis of Sade and Sacher-Masoch done by Gilles Deleuze. | RESUMEN. En este artículo ponemos en cuestión el binomio del sadomasoquismo defendido en general por el psicoanálisis freudiano. Proponemos en su lugar la independencia de estas dos expresiones de la perversión, apoyándonos en el estudio y análisis de las obras del Marqués de Sade y de Sacher-Masoch realizado por Gilles Deleuze.

Within the National Security domain there is a convergence of security responsibility across the national security agencies, law enforcement and private security sectors. The sensitivity of this environment requires individuals operating in the domain to be honest, trustworthy and loyal. Personnel vetting is a formal process used to determine an individual's suitability for access to this domain. Notwithstanding this process, significant breaches of trust, security, and corruption still occur.