Psychological Theories of Crime and Involvement - Essay Example

Psychological theories of crime and involvement in: sexual abuse: Jimmy Saville affiliation Introduction There existseveral psychological theories that have been used to explain the relationship between personalities and criminal activities in humans. Considering the influence of nature and nurture that is relative in the determination of criminal behavior, moral development us obviously crucial. Research has been done, and some consider the genetic importance while others considers the environment and upbringing as the main factors that are to blame in cases of individual criminal activities. Research points out that environment have a huge role in the criminal behavior of an individual. Environment is attributed to the factors like poverty, large sizes of families, poor techniques of rearing children and low income in the family. It is well known as well as defined that the offensive nature of individuals are concentered in families and are passed done generations from one to the next. However, this could be due to social and environmental factors playing roles in the offending behaviors (Sweeten et al. 2013, pp.921–938). To specify the psychological theory of crimes distinctively is difficult. In this entry, the principals that guide is that the psychological theories focus on the individual and family factors influence on the offending. Psychological theories of crime are usually developmental in that they are trying to explain the offenders’ development from childhood to adulthood. Such theories emphasis lies on the continuity rather than discontinuity on the individual from childhood to adulthood. From this perspective, the assumption that is common is that the ordering of individuals on a construct that is underlying like the potential for criminal is relatively construct with time. Offending as viewed by the psychologists is a type of behavior that resembles antisocial behaviors in several ways. Thus, it is possible to apply theories, methods, and knowledge of other types of antisocial behaviors in studying crime. That the theory that offending is considered as an element of a larger syndrome of antisocial behavior was popularized by Lee Robins. This basis is used to classify of antisocial personality disorder as psychiatric. It is argued that personality that is antisocial is normal in early life and most of the times it does persist from childhood to adulthood manifesting with different behaviors. Psychological theories of crime and involvement in: sexual abuse Criminal activities such as sexual assault on individuals are thought to be because of psychological problems that individuals encountered during their development in childhood days. This criminal activity may be a direct cause of suppression or assault of a child in early days. As the child grows up into adulthood, these bad experiences haunt him and act as driving push for him to engage into criminal activity like sexual assault. He does this to be free from the haunting memories or as a sense of revenge from what he experienced during childhood. Sexual abuse to some individual may be because the individual is going through internal conflicts between the realities with what he needs as satisfaction. If this conflict persists and the individual cannot hold anymore to his urges, he ends up committing sexual assault (Daly & Wilson 2007, p.51). To understand the relationship existing between the psychological theories of crime and how individuals end up committing offenses it will be good to understand the theories and what they talk about. Early psychological theorizing regarding criminal behavior Freud’s model of psyche and implication to criminal behaviors Freud’s theory is founded on the perception of resistance that individuals use when conscious is tried to be made from their unconscious by therapists. From birth, an individual’s behavior is presumed to be as a result of three aspects of personality: id, ego and superego. The id is considered a source of all the instincts that drives individuals, and it consists of everything that is seen in an individual at birth. The ego is considered to act as a moderator between the demands of the instinct, the super-ego, and the reality. The ego in this case characterizes what can be referred to as sanity and reason while the id refers to an individuals passions. The id has no conflicts whereas there is a need to resolve the conflicts that arises between the impulses in ego. The super-ego is also classified as a conscience. During the individual’s course of development, this tends to evolve, and the individual will learn the society’s values and how to restrict himself or herself. Freud’s explains that the larger portion of both the superego and ego remains unconscious. Moreover, an individual takes a great deal of efforts in order for him or her to recognize their unconscious. The unconscious may be bad and disturbing memories of the past. They are urges that are forbidden and among other experiences that the individual has repressed or suppressed or even pushed it deeper in the subconscious, away from the conscious being. While individuals may not be aware of their unconscious experience, they continue seeking some expression in the form of fantasies and dreams. The individual could engage himself or herself in behaviors that are destructive and irrational if these unconscious experiences are not brought to his or her awareness. Delinquency will manifest when it results to antisocial behavior. Cognitive approach This perspective of psychological theory focuses on the way human being processes information. This psychology takes its focus on how human react to external and internal stimuli. In cognitive approach, studies focus on the internal processes like attention, perception, language and memory and thinking. Hans Eysenck: theory of crime and personality The personality of humans can be viewed in three different dimensions. The first dimension is psychoticism. The individuals who are considered to be having high psychoticism are always associated with aggressive behaviors, cold, impersonal characteristic, egocentric, impulsive, tough-minded, unemphatic and antisocial behaviors. On the other hand, individuals who possess low psychoticism are characterized as being empathic, altruistic, empathic, warm, peaceful and more pleasant. Extroversion is the second dimension that is associated with the traits of being sociable, lively, actively, assertive, sensation seeking and venturesome. However, most individuals are not exclusively extroverted or introverted, rather, these dimensions of personalities and the traits associated are more on a continuum with a majority of individuals in the middle and not at the extremes. Finally, the last dimension is neuroticism. The traits associated with this dimension include anxiety, depression, and feelings of guilt, low self-esteem, tension, shyness, moodiness and emotionality. According to Eysenck, individuals who are extroverts are characterized by low levels of cortical arousal. In order to achieve levels of arousal that is ideal, extroverts require more stimuli and excitement in their environment. These individuals are less susceptible to punishment and pain and experience less fear and anxiety. For the neurotics, the biological link lies in the autonomic nervous system part that involves the fight and flight reactions. The level of cortical arousal is also linked with psychoticism. Lawrence Kohlberg: moral development According to Lawrence Kohlberg, the development of moral judgment evolves in children through a three level progression, each level of progression consist of two stages. The pre-conventional level of morality is the first level that is characterized by the designation of what is considered either “right” or “wrong”. In this case, what is deemed either right or wrong is determined by the people in authority. In this stage, rewards and punishment are key components in stage one of this level. Stage two of this level is marked by the development of moral relativity. This implies that an individual recognizes that different people do possess varying justifications that are different for their claims of justice. In this case, an individual may view justice as an equal exchange of favors or settling of scores. The second level is the conventional level of morality. Kohlberg considers this level as the normal approaches used by an adult in marinating social and family order. In this stage, individuals begin understanding and living by the golden rule principle. They tend to appreciate the acts of generosity for the individuals in need and forgiving the ones who do wrong. The values of justice are then expanded to the social order and following the societal law. The last level is the post-conventional level of morality. In this level, an individual considers issues of “meta-ethical” including why an individual should be moral. In this case, an individual attempts to balance between the rules of the society and his rights. According to Kohlberg, this is considered to be a “social contract” in moral perspective. Crime and personalities It is argued that certain types of personalities are more prone to criminal behaviors than others. Since offending is seen as natural, most psychological theories of crime attempt to explain the mechanism development that try to inhibit offending like the conscience. It is assumed that the conscience arises in a conditioning process that depends on the association between antisocial behaviors and the anxiety created through punishment by the parents or in the process of learning. The learning process involves the probability of a behavior to increase or decrease depending on the rewards and punishment of parenting. Psychological theories often include the process of cognition that tries to explain why people chose to be offensive in certain situations. An assumption that is common is that offending is seen as essentially rational and that people tend to offend when they think that what they are going to get as benefits is going to outweigh the costs expected. Nonetheless, psychologists are fully dedicated in the scientific study of the behaviors of humans with most emphasis put on the theories. The psychological approaches to what causes the sexual assault by the offender have focused much on the abuser rather than the family or the victim of sexual abuse. The search for the personality traits and profile of the offenders of sexual assault has focused to establish the existence of fixed personalities stable that is predictive of sex offenders. Some of the personality traits and characteristics that have been identified among the sexual offenders include social introversion, feelings of inadequacy of masculinity and the need to exercise high dominance level and control in relationships and families. Sexual abusers have been found to have adept of rationalization and displacing every responsibility that they have and tend to put blames on others rather than self. It is clear that the sexual abuses are not confined to families that are economically or socially deprived but rather come from all walks of social background. In addition, this people do not suffer from any problem of mental illness neither do they have any other criminal tendencies. In terms of motivation for abuse, the individual abusing drugs alcohol. They may directly contributes due to lack of internal inhibition to committing sexual offenses due to poor control of impulses. The use of alcohols and drinks by the individual may be the main reason the individuals are attempting to suppress bad experiences in life. From the psychological theories, it is seen that when an individual suppresses his needs into the subconscious being, conflicts arise between the ego and superego resulting into an outburst of action. In such a case, if at all an individual was suppressing his sexual feelings this manifests through development of a strong sexual urge that is irresistible leading to rape. At this time, the individual reality is overpowered by the fantasies, and he cannot think or control himself from the act. From Jimmy Seville’s case, it is noted that Jimmy had been assaulting people aged from five years to seventy-five years. Jimmy had abused almost sixty victims before he was charged with sexual assault. In Jimmys case, it cannot be said that he had been having fun assaulting his victims. The fact remains from the theories that, there are likelihood of jimmy having been abused in his younger days that made him develop his sexual offensive nature (Great Britain, 2013). Seville grew up with a bonding system that was traumatized. Parents who are traumatized are always emotional unavailable to their child because they were victims themselves sometime back. Seville’s sexual exploits often seemed to be devoid of any pleasure with no attempt of reaching organism. In all his sexual abuse cases, there is no single instance where he had displayed true affection or wishing to give his victims pleasure in his actions (Great Britain, 2013).. Seville is showing high degree of dissociation that started during his early stages of life. He is showing psychopathic and narcissistic characteristics in his actions and thinking. During his childhood upbringing, Seville had a tense relationship with his mother that made him be detached from any feeling. His bumpy relationship contributed to the feeling of regret and anger that was piling up in his unconscious being. Seville is a victim of poor parenting that traumatized his early days of childhood. He had a rough time to live like any other child of his age and the only thing he could do rather than suppress his feelings in his unconscious part. His persona, therefore, developed from a lack of responsiveness that was shown by his mother to bring him up with good qualities and love like any other child. Therefore, Seville lived a victim of negative life and the wrong attitude in life. He was often abused by his mother who had uncontrolled behavior and perhaps went through emotional abuse and even sexual and physical abuse. In this case, abuse and not genes, is emerging as the main cause of his personality disorder and psychosis behaviors he was displaying. His traumatized life started with simple life trauma that kept on piling. He started looking searching love, connection and a sense of belonging, but he could not get. He then developed a feeling of detachment that was haunting him throughout his life and was pushing him being his ability to resist committing the crimes he was associated with. From the theories, one understands that the offenders do not commit a sexual offense willingly and within their control this happens due to factors that they have no control over. When there are conflicts between ego and superego, the individual becomes helpless, and the only way he can quench what the superego wants is through committing the offense. In conclusion, the psychological theories of crime have helped a lot in the understanding the relationship the contribution to the explanation on the reasons why the offenders engage in criminal activities like sexual offense (Wright & Bechtel 2007, pp. 31–79). References Daly, M. & Wilson, M., 2007. Crime and Conflict: Homicide in Evolutionary Psychological Perspective. Crime and Justice, 22, p.51. Great Britain., & Great Britain. (2013). The BBCs response to the Jimmy Savile case: Oral and written evidence : 23 October 2012 - George Entwistle, Director-General, and David Jordan, Director of Editorial Policy and Standards, BBC; 27 November 2012- Lord Patten, Chairman, BBC Trust, and Tim Davie, Acting Director-General, BBC. London: Stationery Office. Sweeten, G., Piquero, A.R. & Steinberg, L., 2013. Age and the Explanation of Crime, Revisited. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 42, pp.921–938. Wright, C. & Bechtel, W., 2007. Mechanisms and Psychological Explanation. In Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science. pp. 31–79.  Read More