Theories of Criminals

The question whether criminals are born or made is not an easy one, and the answer may lie in one's own intellectual background. Psychological theories would place the blame in learned behavior, or a combination of social/family environment and the criminal's own neurotic predisposition. Sociologists, however, would place the blame in social and economic factors, and the success of targeted intensive job programs for offenders would lend support to their arguments. Physiologists seek biological determinants for the causes of crime. Nonetheless, some crimes seem inexplicable even given all these factors, leaving the door open for the assertion that some people are just born criminals.

Psychological Causes for Criminal Behavior

Many criminal acts, such as theft, can be ascribed to obvious motives. But when people cannot seem to find a rational motive for horrible crimes, for example, mass murder, child molestation, or child murder, they search for rationales based on the mental disturbance of the offender (Hartjen, 1974, p.45). These psychological theories of criminal behavior contend that criminals conduct crimes because they suffer either from a mental disorder or impairment that borders on or represents serious psychosis (Hartjen, 1974, p.45). In addition, other psychological theories attribute criminality to neurotic tendencies or mild emotional disturbances in the criminal. Generally, most psychological theories are based on the concepts of Sigmund Freud.

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c job skills, impacted youthful behavior and adult offenders the least. Currie blames poor implementation and haphazard training for their failure (1985, p.132). Furthermore, many of these programs were offered within the prisons themselves, and economist Robert Taggart concluded that most of the work they offered was "degrading and irrelevant" and not clearly connected to real job opportunities in the outside world. For example, a more successful program offered at Riker's Island prison in New York provided serious skill training and substantial job-development efforts for its trainees (Currie, 1985, p.133). In the late 1960s, the emphasis in job programs for offenders shifted from the prisons to the community, but Currie notes that the result of community-based programs such as pretrial release and work release were "not impressive" (1985, p.133). He argues that the problem was that the programs provided a very limited range of services such as job counseling, an attempt at placement, and perhaps some follow-up after an offender had been placed in a job. Currie maintains that few of these programs offered solid skills training or actual jobs, and they often relied on overworked probation or parole agencies to secure work for ex-

Category: Psychology - T