Psychological theories of crime

for crime causation

1. PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF CRIMINALITY By: Bimboy Cueno

2. Topic Objectives:   At the end of the presentation, the audience should be able to DIG: 1. Discuss the application of psychological theories of crime in real life situations. 2. Interconnect these theories to criminal behaviors 3. Gain additional knowledge on psychological theories of crime

3. CLASSICAL VS. POSITIVISTS While the classical school focuses on the concept of free will, the positivist school focuses on the biological, psychological, and sociological influences that affect the conduct in question.

4. Psychological Theories of Crime It focuses on the influence of individual`s experiences of their emotional adjustment as well as on their personality traits and types. The psychological theories of crime contain an assumption that there is something wrong with the mind of the offender, which causes him to commit crimes (Sammons, 2002).

5. Psychological Theories of Crime *Psychoanalytic Theory (Sigmund Freud) *Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura ) *Theory of Frustration Agrression (John Dollard, Neal Miller, Leonard Doob ,  Orval Mowrer , and Robert Sears)

6. Psychoanalytic Theory

7. This theory blames criminal or deviant behavior to a conscience that is either so overbearing that it arouses feelings of guilt, or so weak that it cannot control the individual`s impulses and leads to a need for immediate gratification.

8. Explain criminal behavior as the consequence of individual factors such as: negative early childhood experiences

9. Amber is 57 years old and is an accomplished professional, but she never feels like her work is good enough and is always afraid that people will be unhappy with her performance. She realizes that she might have this outlook because when she was growing up, her mother criticized everything she did. If she brought home a test with an A+ on it, her mother would comment that Amber must have cheated because she certainly wasn’t smart enough to do that well on her own. 

10. Inadequate socialization which results in criminal thinking patterns and/or incomplete cognitive development (Roberson, 2010; Sammons 2002).

11. Overview of the General Principles of Psychoanalysis First, an individual`s behavior is presumed to be due to the three aspects of his personality

12. The id is the source of the instinctual drives, it contains everything that is present at birth .

13. 2 Types Of Instinctual Drives CONSTRUCTIVE DRIVES are usually sexual in nature. Freud used the term sex in broader context, thus sex includes those things that gives pleasure. INSTINCTUAL DRIVE is destructive. This refers to things such as aggression, destruction, and death (Roberson, 2010).

14. The ego is the moderator between the demands of an instinct, and the superego. Freud noted that the ego characterizes what is referred to as reason and sanity while the id refers to passions. The ego compensates for the demands of the ID and operates in a “reality principle” (Roberson, 2010).

15. The superego is designated as the conscience, this evolves during which he or she learns the restrictions morals, values of the society.  

16. ID Example: If your Id passed through a boy playing with a ball, the immediate urge to get that ball will drive you to snatch it by any means, this is irrational and may lead to the conflict between the boys. Thus, Id is the source of psychic energy, a force that is behind all the mental forces.

17. SUPEREGO If the super-ego passed that boy playing with a ball, it would not snatch it, as it would know that snatching is bad and may lead to a quarrel. Thus, super ego act as a constraint on your behavior and guides you to follow the right path. But if the Id is stronger than super-ego, you will definitely snatch the ball by any means.

18. EGO If you pass through the same boy playing with the ball, your ego will mediate the conflict between the Id and super-ego and will decide to buy a new ball for yourself. This may hurt you Id, but the ego would take this decision to reach to a compromise situation between the Id and super-ego by satisfying the desire of getting a ball without committing any unpleasant social behavior.

19. WEAK SUPEREGO- would act in ways that gratified the id, regardless of the social restraints on doing so. STRONG SUPEREGO- Develops guilt and anxiety. This could result in a person committing crimes in order to get caught and punished to assuage the guilt imposed by their own superego. Normally, they would express these impulses harmlessly through defense mechanisms (sport). If the superego prevents this, the aggression or sexual desire could build up over time until it becomes strong enough to overwhelm the ego and is expressed suddenly and violently as murder or rape.

20. Freud believed these three pieces of the mind are in constant conflict, as the primary goal is different for each piece. Sometimes, when the conflict is too much for a person to handle, his or her ego may engage in one or many defense mechanisms to protect the individual (Power, 2010).

21. Repression: unconscious mechanism in which the ego pushes disturbing or threatening thoughts out of consciousness. Involves intentional forgetting.

22. Denial: the ego blocks upsetting or overwhelming experiences from awareness, causing the individual to refuse to acknowledge or believe what is happening.

23. Projection: the ego’s attempt to solve discomfort by attributing the individual’s unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and motives to another person (blaming).

24. Displacement: a mechanism by which the individual can satisfy an impulse by acting on a substitute object or person in a socially unacceptable way (e.g., releasing frustration directed toward your boss on your spouse instead).

25. Regression: a defense mechanism in which the individual moves backward in development in order to cope with stress (e.g., an overwhelmed adult acting like a child).

26. Sublimation: similar to displacement, this defense mechanism involves satisfying an impulse by acting on a substitute, but in a socially acceptable way (e.g., channeling energy into work or a constructive hobby; McLeod, 2013).

27. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

28. Crime is the product of learning the norms, values and behaviors in the society associated with criminal or non criminal activities.

29. Adherents of social learning theory make a common-sense claim: Behavior is learned when it is reinforced, and not learned when it is not reinforced.  

30. THE BOBO DOLL EXPERIMENT

31. Bandura , Ross, and Ross (1961) tested 36 boys and 36 girls from the Stanford University Nursery School aged between 3 to 6 years old. The researchers pre-tested the children for how aggressive they were by observing the children in the nursery and judged their aggressive behavior

32. Results and Implications: First, the child is more likely to attend to and imitate those people it perceives as similar to itself. Consequently, it is more likely to imitate behavior modeled by people of the same gender.

33. Second, the people around the child will respond to the behavior it imitates with either reinforcement or punishment.  If a child imitates a model’s behavior and the consequences are rewarding, the child is likely to continue performing the behavior.  If a parent sees a little girl consoling her teddy bear and says “what a kind girl you are,” this is rewarding for the child and makes it more likely that she will repeat the behavior.  Her behavior has been reinforced (i.e., strengthened).

34. Reinforcement can be external or internal and can be positive or negative.  If a child wants approval from parents or peers, this approval is an external reinforcement, but feeling happy about being approved of is an internal reinforcement.  A CHILD WILL BEHAVE IN A WAY WHICH IT BELIEVES WILL EARN APPROVAL BECAUSE IT DESIRES APPROVAL. 

35. Third, the child will also take into account of what happens to other people when deciding whether or not to copy someone’s actions.  A person learns by observing the consequences of another person’s (i.e., models) behavior, e.g., a younger sister observing an older sister being rewarded for a particular behavior is more likely to repeat that behavior herself.  This is known as vicarious reinforcement.

36. THE THEORY OF FRUSTRATION AGGRESSIVENESS

37. It attempts to give an explanation as to the cause of violence. According to Dollard and colleagues, frustration is the "condition which exists when a goal-response suffers interference," while aggression is defined as "an act whose goal-response is injury to an organism (or an organism surrogate)." The theory says that frustration causes aggression, but when the source of the frustration cannot be challenged, the aggression gets displaced onto an innocent target.

38. The theory simply says that aggression is the result of blocking, or frustrating, a person's efforts to attain a goal

39. EXAMPLE If a man is disrespected and humiliated at his work, but cannot respond to this for fear of losing his job, he may go home and take his anger and frustration out on his family.

40. This theory is also used to explain riots and revolutions, which both are believed to be caused by poorer and more deprived sections of society who may express their bottled up frustration and anger through violence

41. ALBERT FISH

42. In the early summer of 1870 a fourth child, Hamilton, was born into the home of Randall and Ellen Fish of Washington, DC.   The Fish family had a history of severe mental disorders: a paternal uncle who was diagnosed with religious psychosis, a maternal uncle who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and a mother who claimed to have visions ( The Serial Scribbler.com ) .

43. Hamilton’s siblings also had problems: a brother was confined to a state mental hospital, a sister was diagnosed with a mental affliction, and a youngest brother who was slow-witted and an alcoholic ( The Serial Scribbler.com ) .

44. In 1874, Randall Fish died of a heart attack. Unable to care for her children Randall Fish’s wife, Ellen Fish, placed five year old Hamilton in to the Saint John’s Orphanage in Washington, DC.

45. Hamilton was forced to watch and participate in forced masturbation in-front of other children.  The children, including Hamilton, were beaten with a hair brush and a whip, until the flesh on their buttocks bled.  When the boys grew older they were  required to administer punishment to the younger boys and be forced to pleasure the nuns that looked after them ( Schecher , 1990).  

46. Hamilton Fish spent five abusive years in the Saint John’s Orphanage, until his mother acquired a stable job.

47. In 1890, Hamilton Fish changed his name to Albert Fish. He married a young woman and had several children with her. One  situational factor that had a gigantic impact on Albert Fish, was his wife running off with another man, leaving him with six children to raise. This caused an emotional break within Albert Fish.

48. In 1890, Hamilton Fish changed his name to Albert Fish. He married a young woman and had several children with her. During this time he began to rape young colored boys, in an interview with Dr. Fredrick Wertham , Fish stated he took colored boys because they would not be inclined to tell and law enforcement would not be aware of their disappearance .

49. One  situational factor that had a gigantic impact on Albert Fish, was his wife running off with another man, leaving him with six children to raise. This caused an emotional break within Albert Fish.

50. By 1919 his obsession with torture and cannibalism had escalated, and he began to plan an actual murder. He began to look for children that no one would miss, such as mentally handicapped orphans, or homeless black children. He claimed that God was speaking him, and commanding him to torture young children.

51.   He began to read advertisements in local papers, for homes with children looking for housework, or for young men looking for work themselves. It was through one of these advertisements that he found young Grace Budd.

52. GRACE BUDD

53. Grace had not always been Albert Fish’s intended target. In fact, it was her older brother that he had his sights set on. The brother, Edward, had placed an ad looking for work on a farm or in the country. Fish had planned on “hiring” him and bringing him out to his country house to torture him.

54. Under the guise of Frank Howard, Fish called on the Budd family’s Manhattan home. He claimed to have some farm work upstate, and that he was looking for some help around the house. Then, he noticed the young girl standing behind her parents. Instantly he changed his victim, focusing instead on little Grace.

55. He mentioned in passing as he was discussing his farm, that he was in town to visit his niece and attend her birthday party. Somehow, despite meeting the family just moments before, he convinced Delia and Albert Budd to let him take their daughter along to his niece’s birthday party. Albert and Delia agreed.

56. They never saw her again.

57. He sent an anonymous letter to Delia Budd confessing his crimes. Police authorities were able to trace him as the sender. He admitted it.

58. "My Dear Mrs. Budd, In 1894, a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the steamer Tacoma, Capt. John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco to Hong Kong, China. On arriving there, he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned, the boat was gone.

59. At that time, there was a famine in China. Meat of any kind was 1-3 dollars a pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak, chops, or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girl's behind, which is the sweetest part of the body and is sold as veal cutlets, brings the highest price.

60. John stayed there so long that he acquired a taste for human flesh. On his return to N.Y., he stole two boys -- one 7, one 11. He took them to his home, stripped them naked, and tied them up in a closet, and then burned everything they had on. Several times every day and night he spanked them -- tortured them -- to make their meat good and tender

61. First, he killed the 11-year-old boy, because he had the fattest ass and of course the most meat on it. Every part of his body was cooked and eaten except the head, bones, and guts. He was roasted in the oven (all of his ass), boiled, broiled, fried, and stewed. The little boy was next, and he went the same way. At that time, I was living at 409 E. 100 St. He told me so often how good human flesh was, and I made up my mind to taste it.

62. On June 3, 1928, I called on you at 406 W. 15 St. and brought you pot cheese and strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat on my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her. On the pretense of taking her to a party, you said yes, she could go. I took her to an empty house in Westchester I had already picked out. When we got there, I told her to remain outside. She picked wildflowers. I went upstairs and stripped all my clothes off. I knew if I did not I would get her blood on them

63. When all was ready, I went to the window and called her. Then I hid in the closet until she was in the room. When she saw me all naked she began to cry and tried to run down the stairs. I grabbed her and she said she would tell her mamma

64. First, I stripped her naked. How she did kick, bite, and scratch. I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take the meat to my rooms, cook, and eat it. How sweet and tender her little ass was roasted in the oven. It took me 9 days to eat her entire body. I did not fuck her, though I could have if I wished. She died a virgin.“ (crimemuseum.org)

65. . X-ray of Fish's pelvis and perineum, introduced as evidence at his trial, demonstrating more than two dozen self-embedded needles  

66. POINT OF DISCUSSION How would you explain Albert Fish`s criminal behavior?