How does the criminal think? What is he guided by when committing another crime? These issues are studied at once by several scientific disciplines. So, in criminal psychology there is the concept of analysis of the identity of the criminal. The material gives a brief description of the main features and aspects of this analysis.
Socio-demographic factor
The concept of the personality structure of the criminal and the recidivist is a conditional division of the relationships and properties that characterize the abstract person into psychological, physiological, legal, demographic and other significant groups of relationships and properties. The personality structure is a correlation of criminologically important social features and psychological properties of a criminal person.
The characterization of the offender should begin with the most important component - namely, socio-demographic. The study and registration of such personality traits allows you to distinguish criminals from law-abiding citizens. The factors that influence the commission of criminal acts are identified. Such an analysis should be implemented not only on a national scale, but also within a particular region. The results of the study will identify the most important areas of preliminary work.
It is necessary to provide a description of the main features of the socio-demographic characteristics of the personality of a criminal person. It includes such components as gender and age characteristics, social status and occupation, the nature and duration of the criminal act.
The concept and structure of the personality of the offender include selective criminological studies, as well as important statistics. Let's take age as an example of statistics - one of the most popular indicators in forensics.
Age characteristic
The typology of criminals must necessarily contain such an important point as age. A similar element allows us to draw conclusions about the characteristics of criminal behavior and criminal activity. Moreover, criminology itself has long been established that young people are more likely to commit theft and other crimes based on impulsive, sometimes even excessively aggressive motives.
And at the same time, the illegal behavior of older people is less impulsive. It is deliberate, and is largely determined by needs, life goals, range of interests, life values, habits, and many other elements that may somehow affect actions of an unlawful nature.
The identity of a repeat offender is largely determined by age. So, according to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, almost half of all crimes in the country are committed by people from 15 to 29 years old. However, the most criminogenic is still the part of the population that is from 30 to 49 years old. Of the number of minors brought to justice of criminal nature, only about 10-15%. The smallest share of criminals is considered that part of the population, whose representatives are already over 60 years old.
Social status
The second important element that affects the concept and structure of the personality of the criminal is his occupation and position in society. It should immediately be said that this is not the most accurate and correct indicator. Here it is only allowed to draw conclusions about in which social strata and groups, in which areas of life, the most common crimes of one nature or another.
A study of such issues shows that about half of the criminals at the time of the commission of the wrongful act were not married. This is twice as high as the proportion of people who were tied by the bonds of Hymen. Moreover, the rate of criminogenicity among persons who are not married is two times higher than that of single citizens. Often this is due to the fact that a significant proportion of the criminals are still very young citizens who simply did not have time to start a family.
It should also be noted that the families of persons who are registered in marriage are often stronger and happier than those who prefer only actual marriage. During the serving of sentences in prisons, the families of women who were convicted often broke up. In other words, wives are able to wait for their convicted husbands. The reverse situation is practically not encountered.
The nature of criminal behavior
An important role is played by the social status of the criminal. Most of the people who committed atrocities could take part in socially useful work, some studied, received pensions or even served. However, among unemployed people the highest proportion of recidivists.
Among citizens who commit criminal acts, the majority are workers. Significantly fewer peasants, students and employees. This is identical to the structural division of the population. About 93% of criminals are locals. There are only 5% of criminals with higher education, with a professional secondary education a little more than 19%, and with a general secondary (school) education, about 75%.
According to studies, most of the criminals are fully able-bodied. Only one in ten had limited disability. There were also not so many criminals with personality disorders: only 20% suffered from alcoholism, oligophrenia, psychopathy, diseases of the nervous system, etc. However, individual criminal behavior still strongly depends on the psychological component of the personality of the criminal. This item should be discussed in detail below.
The psychological component of personality
The presence of anomalies in the human psyche allows us to realize the commission of only a small part of the crimes. Basically, some acts of a violent or hooligan nature are directly related to impaired consciousness, or to the complete degradation of the person. This should also include an antisocial lifestyle - such as drunkenness, vagrancy, begging, etc.
A considerable part of crimes is realized by completely healthy, mentally stable people. Here the most popular types of violation of the law are thefts, economic crimes, violence, violation of the management order, encroachment on public safety or social order and much more. Such acts are implemented by healthy, mentally sane people.
The influence of mental illness on criminal behavior
Some of the criminal acts may be committed by persons with minor mental disorders. However, such violations of consciousness do not always have something to do with the criminal act itself. It all depends on the group, persistence of anomalies of consciousness, the form of reason and other elements of the personality structure. Many studies have shown that among the killers and guilty citizens who inflicted grievous bodily harm, there are many psychopaths and people with psychopathic disorders.
If we talk about rape, then they are mainly committed by persons with disorders of the central nervous system, oligophrenics, as well as citizens with problems of the autism spectrum. Statistics evaluate the link between a particular crime and an anomaly of reason possessed by the guilty person.
Criminogenicity of anomalies is caused by forms of pathological personality changes. As clinical practice shows, they can be temporary or transitory in nature with the subsequent restoration of personality. A comparative psychological study of the personality of large criminal groups showed that the former are significantly different from the latter. The differences are as follows:
- the presence of aggressiveness;
- increased level of impulsiveness, that is, a tendency to act on the first impulse;
- high sensitivity and vulnerability in interpersonal relationships.
Thus, the concept and structure of the personality of the criminal directly depends on the psychological factors of the criminal person himself.
Social role component
Criminals are worse at assimilating the requirements of legal and moral standards. Moreover, they have practically no influence on such citizens. Such people very often simply are not able to understand what exactly society requires of them. Perhaps this is due to the unusual perception and various kinds of attitudes. In this regard, any life situations are subject to significant distortion. Since regulatory control is violated, the assessment of the situation does not take place from the standpoint of social requirements, but on the basis of their personal experiences, problems, grievances, attraction and instincts.
There are other violations of social adaptation. They are caused by a lack of motivation to implement social requirements. In this case, the person realizes what exactly the environment requires of him. However, he simply does not want to fulfill all the requirements. This is generated by the alienation of the individual from society and some of its values, as well as from small social groups - such as the family, work collective, etc. If we give an assessment to the psychological characteristics of the personality of the criminal, then such people have poor social adaptability. They have great difficulties in trying to adapt to one or another small group. The alienation of criminals is manifested, for example, in the fact that they have an extremely low level of education or work qualification. Many do not have families at all, contacts with relatives are not established, criminals themselves often change their place of work and residence.
The in-depth analysis conducted by the representatives of criminology allowed us to conclude that any deliberate criminal behavior is quite natural, subjectively appropriate and largely motivated.
The ratio of biological and social
Having studied the main factors on the basis of which the typology of criminals is formed, it is necessary to characterize the biological and social element in human behavior. A combination of these two factors is also required.
Studying the relationship between biological and social in a criminal requires a multilateral approach using the latest achievements in the field of sociology, psychology, philosophy, criminology and other scientific disciplines. A person should be examined not from abstract logical positions, but as a product of a concrete historical process. In this sense, every citizen has his own social nature, and a person is able to undergo formation only if the individual is included in the system of social relations. The social character of a citizen’s life is his hallmark. However, this does not mean ignoring biological factors that have the character of a condition.
Biological factors may themselves contribute to criminal behavior. This is a banal predisposition, heredity. However, one should not think that only anomalies of the psyche are the main and only reasons for committing criminal acts. It should also take into account the moral and psychological characteristics of the personality of the offender. Servants of the law study the motivation of each crime. It is necessary to understand and analyze the subjective causes of the crime. So, many criminals even have their own philosophy and value system that they are guided by during the commission of illegal acts. This is an extremely important criminological characteristic, which must be taken into account.
Motivation sphere
We’ll deal with the moral and psychological structure of the criminal’s personality in more detail. It is required to understand how the criminal thinks, what he is guided by when committing another crime. The construction of a motivational sphere, which is considered the core of the moral and psychological system of the personality, will help here. Integrated needs, interests and leading relationships. Along with self-interest and aggressive and violent motivation, a rather important subjective basis is formed - an individualistic system of motives, frivolously irresponsible.
Motivation is formed in many ways typical of criminals. These are emotional instability, impulsivity, lack of internal inhibition, and much more. Plus, the criminal himself is very suggestible - but only in relation to himself. Any ideas and motives will be quickly enough cultivated and elevated to absolute.
Examination of the identity of the offender
So, in what way is the study of the identity of the criminal person? There are three important groups - knowledge, skills and possessions. A person must know the classification of criminals, have a concept of the identity of the offender, his characteristic signs and personality structure.
Also, the forensic scientist should be able to analyze the conceptual-categorical apparatus, evaluate the socio-demographic personality types of criminals. The third point related to skills concerns the analysis and assessment of the identity of criminals. Possession is about working with regulatory and legal acts. It should also indicate the ability to take an active citizenship.