What implications do psychological theories or criminal ...
Psychoanalytic theories on criminal behavior are many and varied. Freud thought it had to do with an improper resolution of the Oedipal conflict, making criminals suffer enormous guilt, and they performed the crimes to be punished and receive temporary relieve of their guilt. Alexander felt that criminals were unable to handle the “reality principle” and therefore could not delay gratification. Bowlby believed it was a substitute for love and affection due to a disruption in the mother-son bond that caused criminal careers. (Criminology) Eysenick felt that criminal behavior was the result of interactions between certain environmental conditions and the nervous system. Glasser believed in rational choice theory, that people have free will to decide whether or not to commit a crime. But in the simplest form, “Psychological factors of crime include anger, fear, poverty, drug use, mental illness, gang membership, bad decisions, excitement and laziness” along with many others. (eHow)
While there is not a lot public policy can do to help someone committing crimes because of anger, bad decisions, excitement or laziness, policy has been affected in the way crime and criminals are looked at regarding fear (castle laws allowing you to fight back in your home if you feel threatened), poverty (“We ask leniency from the court since they only stole food because they lost all income and support and had to feed their children, Your Honor”), drug use (We should put drug abusers into programs to get them off drugs instead of into prisons), mental illness (when committed by those with mental deficiencies they are not held completely accountable for the crimes), and gang membership (treating gangs as racketeering organizations under RICO).
While it may seem that there would be a vast difference between psychology and biology in identifying the theories for crime, the two fields are very much interactive. A true psychoanalytic approach would deal only with those things related to the mind as seen by Freud, but it is quite obvious to even the casual observer that such a difference does not really exist. There could very well be and probably are biologic reasons for the mind to work the way it does, especially in the case of criminals. Learning disabilities and other physical (biological) factors figure strongly in whether a person will commit a crime or not. Just the same, a lot of the decision to actually go through with committing the crime instead of just thinking about it probably comes from some external force or observations.
REFERENCES
“Criminology: the study of crime and behavior.” Retrieved 1/21/10. .
eHow. “Theories of Criminal Behavior.” Retrieved 1/21/10. .
Eysenck, H. J., and Gudjonsson, G. H. (1989). "The causes and cures of criminality." Plenum. New York.
Siegel, Larry J. (2005). Criminology. Thomson Wadsworth. California.
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