There are basically five major psychological theories that are associated with criminal psychology which deals with the thoughts and behaviours of offenders and criminals. These are psychodynamic theory, cognitive theory, behavioural theory, personality theory and theory of intelligence. These theories explain dynamics underlying crime and criminal behaviours. The psychodynamic theory provides explanation for crime and criminal behavior. Let us see in detail how this theory explains criminality.
1. Psychodynamic Theory and Criminal Behaviour
According to the psychodynamic theory, the early childhood experiences of the individual are responsible for such behaviours. The proponent of this theory was Sigmund Freud and this theory had three basic elements, viz., the Id, the Ego and the Super Ego. While Id was considered the primitive part of the individual’s mental makeup and was also present at birth onwards, the Ego developed in the early years of the individual’s life. The Id functions on pleasure principle, in the sense, it needs immediate gratification of its needs, desires and wishes. Psychodynamic theorists are of the view that the individual’s personality is controlled by unconscious mental processes having their origin in the person’s childhood. Thus, the Id represents the basic biological drives for food, sex and other needs for the individual’s very survival. Ego on the other hand functions on the reality principle, in the sense that it looks for the available sources in the environment that could gratify the Id’s needs. The Super ego is considered the moral arm of the individual’s personality. It is the embodiment of all the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’, imbibed by the individual on the basis of do’s and don’ts, dictated by the parents and significant others. The conscience is the sense of guilt when the person does something wrong and the Ego Ideal is the idealistic view of all that which is correct/right. While the Ego tries to gratify all the needs of the Id, it also makes sure that the Super Ego’s requirements are not ignored and the ideal self remains and the person is not overwhelmed by guilt feelings. Thus the Ego strives to strike a balance between the Id’s desires and wishes and the moral requirements of the Super Ego. So long as the Ego is strong and capable, neither the Id nor the Superego becomes dominant or overpowering.
According to psychodynamic theory, the Id has been considered responsible for criminal behavior. As mentioned above, Id is concerned with immediate gratification of its needs with no concern for others or what is right and what is wrong. For instance, criminals have no concern for their victims or the society or its laws and regulations. They are generally lonely, interested in getting what they want by forcibly taking away from others their possessions in the process injuring, harming the persons, to such an extent that if situation warrants, they may take away the victim’s life too. Thus, psychodynamic theory explains criminal behavior in terms of a dominant Id, frustration, provocation and childhood experiences such as being neglected, unhappy and miserable, lack of love and nurturing and a very weak super ego and a weak , which is linked to immaturity, and dependency on others.
2. Cognitive Theory and Criminal Behaviour
The next theory to explain criminal behaviour is the cognitive theory. According to this theory, criminal behaviour is explained in terms of the mental processes of the individual. The focus of this theory is to understand how criminals perceive the world around them, and how the individuals solve problems. Cognitive theory has two sub disciplines, viz., a) moral development, and b) information processing.
a) Moral development: The focus in moral development is to understand how individuals morally represent the world and how do they reason about that world. In information processing, the focus is to study how people people acquire, retain, and retrieve information. According to this theory, moral development goes through three different levels and six different stages. Level 1 is called pre conventional which contains stages 1 and 2. Level II is called conventional and contains stages 3 and 4. The third level (Level C) is called post conventional and contains stages 5 and 6.
b) Information processing and criminal behaviour: Under cognitive theory, information processing is an important aspect. According to this, people use their thought processes step by step to make a decision based on the information that they received through their information processing system. For instance, as the individual experiences an event, he/ she gathers all the relevant information from the environment and stores them for retrieval at a later time. Then the person searches for the appropriate response and from amongst the responses, selects the most appropriate one for action. Those persons who use the information correctly and appropriately will avoid criminal or delinquent behaviours. Also those who make reasoned judgements when encounter emotional situations, would most likely avoid criminal or antisocial behaviours. One of the reasons for inappropriate reasoning is the faulty cognitive processes, that is the individual is following what he/ she had learned in childhood. Also such inappropriate reasoning may result from a very long period of exposure to violence and also can be the consequence of rejection. and neglect experienced in childhood. These persons tend to become hypersensitive and often resort to violent behaviours, as a coping mechanism, in addition to becoming alcohol and substance dependent.
Thus, cognitive theories explain criminal behaviour as a defect in thought processes, mental development and moral thinking.
3. Behavioural Theory and Criminal Behaviour
The main tenet of this theory is that all behaviours are learned and hence can be unlearned and a new behaviour which is more appropriate and desired can be learned in place of the undesirable behaviour. By the same logic, criminal behaviour or violent behaviours too are learned and so can be unlearned, and in their place new and desirable behaviours can be learned afresh. Behaviourists opine that behaviours are not inherited but are learned during growing up on the basis of their experiences in their environment. Violent behaviours and criminal tendencies are learned by the individuals from their experiences in their environment. For instance, the individual in his/her childhood years if had been observing his father or any other adult or peer being rewarded for violent behaviours, then the individual acquires and internalises the violent behaviour, and uses it to get the desired outcome. This is also termed “modelling”, as stated by Bandura(1977).
Thus, according to behavioural theory, criminal behaviour is a learned behaviour. If on individual, during his childhood, had experienced a violent environment or had witnessed time and again violence getting rewarded or if he/ she had acquired criminality as part of socialisation in his community, then one can expect such an individual to indulge in criminal and violent behaviours.
4. Personality Theory and Criminal Behaviour
Every individual thinks, feels and acts. Personality can be described as the individual’s pattern of thinking, feeling and acting (that is, the behaviour of the individual). Basically personality deals with two areas, vizindividual differences and how various parts of the person combine together as a whole.
Most definitions of personality focus on the characteristics and patterns of behaviour of an individual. Personality is determined by the interaction of hereditary and environmental factors. Other characteristics of personality include consistency, its impact on individual’s behaviours, and its multiple expressions in thoughts, feelings and close relationships with other people in the environment. Thus, personality can be defined as the characteristic sets of behaviours, cognitions and emotional patterns which evolve from both biological and environmental factors. Thus, personality is relatively stable characteristic of a person that helps behaviour consistent across situations.
There are many personality theories, but the one that could explain criminal behaviour appear to be that of Eysenck’s theory of personality. This theory of Eysenck is also known as personality theory of offending. It is also known as the PEN model. Eysenck considered criminal behaviour as the outcome of interactions between extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism. All these three traits can be measured and interpreted. While E refers to the overall the person being sociable, active, lively and sensation seeking etc. N stands for persons being anxious, depressed and react strongly to adverse stimuli. P refers to psychoticism and people getting high scores on this dimension are considered to be relatively more aggressive, antisocial and more egocentric and Eysenck related P to the functioning of the nervous system and according to him/ her all the three E, N and P traits are determined largely by genetics. On the basis of this theory, Eysenck considered criminal behaviour as arising from immature development, selfishness and persons demanding immediate gratification of all the desires and wishes which arise within. In almost all societies many of these behaviours are intervened by socialisation process and the individual is trained and made to learn to postpone his gratification etc. However in the criminals, socialisation process does not have the needed impact and such persons continue to act irresponsibly and remain immature and cannot tolerate frustration arising due to the needs and wishes not getting gratified immediately. These frustrations lead to anger, violence and indulgence in criminality. One of the personality disorders associated with criminality is the Anti Social Personality Disorder, characterised by impulsive behaviour, excitability, lack of remorse, violating other people’s rights, and linked closely to adult criminal.
5. Theories of Intelligence and Criminal Behaviour
Until now we explained criminal behaviour by different psychological theories, such as the psychodynamic theory, cognitive theory, behavioural theory and personality theory. Now we will discuss criminal behaviour from intelligence perspective, that is intelligence theory.
Before proceeding, let us define intelligence generally and from psychology point of view. According to the general definition, intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. The Merriam Webster dictionary states that Intelligence refers to ‘having or indicating a high or satisfactory degree of intelligence and mental capacity. Intelligence refers to ‘revealing or reflecting good judgment or sound thought, that is skilful. Psychologists define intelligence as the functioning of a number of related faculties and abilities that enable the individual to respond to the different environmental pressures appropriately. It may however be kept in mind that even though there is no single or ‘correct’ definition of intelligence, most definitions have certain common features . For instance, intelligence is a property of an individual which interacts with its various aspects of the individual’s environment. Intelligence is also related to the individual’s ability to succeed in realising an objective or reaching a goal. The ability to adapt oneself to the different objectives and environments. When these are combined, we obtain the definition of ‘intelligence’ as one that measures an individual’s ability to achieve goals with the ability to learn and adapt, to understand and succeed in a wide range of environments.
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