For a long time, many people were interested in one question. And it's not about the meaning of life, no. Hundreds of thinkers have thought about what are the characteristics of the personality of the criminal. Is this a temporary form of deviant behavior, or does the very nature of certain people have an initial desire to commit illegal acts? After all, the vast majority of people in everyday life behave quite normally, showing no desire to commit crimes…
So where do those who have embarked on a “crooked path” come from in our society? In this article we will try to talk about the identity of the offender. This, perhaps, will help someone in teaching or analyzing the behavior of familiar people. It should be noted here that today there are a lot of approaches to solving this problem, and sometimes even prominent scientists cannot agree on a common “denominator”. Well, that's okay: our worldis constantly changing, and therefore the approaches to studying the problems of crime are also changing.
First, you should decide what types of criminal personality exist. Everything is simple here: selfish and violently oriented. With the first type, everything is clear, since a person commits a crime only for the sake of profit. The personalities of those who commit crimes are much more complicated … for the sake of the crime itself. Their mental characteristics are distinguished by a special "brightness" and versatility.
Psychological characteristics
Mental characteristics are a set of personal and behavioral characteristics that form a specific personality. For several decades, during which the psychology of criminals was studied in all countries of the world, it became finally clear that their personalities initially have some negative features.
But even here there were some excesses. Thus, a number of experts believe that a criminal differs from an ordinary person in that an ordinary citizen is in solidarity with the criminal code, but the offender is not. But if you think like this, you can go very far. It is known that many legislative acts, including norms in the field of criminal law, are very controversial. So should law professors be considered criminals?
Thus, the characteristics of the personality of the offender is the attitude to legislative acts. If a law-abiding citizen, even if he does not have any special enthusiasm for some law, still observes it (due to education), then the offender will always violate it. Of course, forexcept in those cases where it would be beneficial for him to comply with the law.
But everything is not so simple here either. Many citizens comply with regulations only out of fear of punishment. Are they considered criminals too? Until now, legal science finds it difficult to give answers to such sensitive and ambiguous questions, since the personality types of the criminal in this case can be replenished with a variety of “potentially criminal layman.”
However, the answer to them can be quite simple: it should be considered that the degree of assimilation of legal norms by criminals is much lower than if we compare them with ordinary people. A citizen may not agree with the provisions of the law, but he recognizes that they must be observed. The criminal thinks differently. But at the same time, we still have to admit that the line between a law-abiding citizen and a delinquent is sometimes very thin, and only the activities of the justice system and other law enforcement institutions of the state keep some citizens from undesirable actions.
How does the criminal feel about the state?
In America, 20 years ago, a study was conducted, the purpose of which was to test the relationship of deviant citizens with state institutions. Several control groups were checked at once, on the basis of the studies of which the criminological personality of the offender was revealed. It turned out that normal citizens tend to treat court decisions as "harsh but fair." Criminals tend to consider them "inhumane and cruel." Andthe closer the discussed article of the law is to the one under which they were convicted, the harsher the assessment becomes.
It has been observed that offenders arrested for petty crimes are sometimes quite adequate to the judicial system, while murderers and bandits do not make contact at all. So the personality structure of the offender is the more adequate, the easier the offense he committed.
Scientific approach
But nevertheless, these works finally proved that the attempt to "bind" the crime to ethics and material base is doomed to failure in any case. It is for this reason that Yu. M. Antonyan's research is of great value. The scientist studied criminals and their motives for several years, researching and testing several groups at once. He checked both ordinary thieves and persons who committed grave and especially grave intentional crimes, including by prior agreement.
The control group consisted of perfectly law-abiding people. All citizens, regardless of their group affiliation, were studied using all available personality testing methods. This made it possible to identify the specific features of the psyche, characteristic only of criminals or persons predisposed to the implementation of illegal actions. What did further study of the identity of the perpetrator show?
Identified characteristics of criminals
It turned out that the offender is a person who does not want to adapt to the social system, or one who is not satisfied with his own social position in the existing socialmodels. In addition, many of these individuals are overly impulsive, or are almost childlike. Because of this, they have little to no self-control, a complete lack of critical evaluation of their own actions.
Because moral, moral and legal norms do not have any visible influence on such people. In some cases, they simply do not understand what exactly society requires of them, and in others they understand, but under no circumstances do they want to comply with these requirements. They evaluate all social obligations only from the point of view of their own benefit. The offender does not want and cannot adapt normally to the social environment, because otherwise the personality structure of the offender experiences severe dissonance.
Repeatedly, cases have been described where offenders, completely freed for the purpose of experiment from their problems with the law, given all the opportunities to conduct an honest business or a good job … after some time they went back to their old ways. They simply did not want to perform even basic social functions. Simply put, many criminals can be compared to parasites: they enjoy all the benefits of society, but at the same time do nothing useful for others. Moreover, it is completely contrary to their morality and certain ethics.
Problems with communication and socialization
For deviant-oriented people, numerous problems with communication turned out to be characteristic: they are generally not able to look at themselves from the outside, they do not know how to sympathize and empathize. Because of this, they losean objective connection with reality, they cannot take the side of another person, even if it is really necessary. For a hardened criminal, the concept of "friend" does not exist in principle, the entire environment is hostile to him by definition.
It is for this reason that they become withdrawn, suspicious, aggressive, they are always selfish. Do they have anything social? The personality of the criminal does not need emotional intimacy, and therefore they are by nature cruel, embittered loners.
The behavior of criminals in many cases is controlled by rash, impulsive actions, they consider all the actions of those around them from the point of view that they are potentially dangerous. But all the features considered are not inherent in all groups of offenders. More precisely, not fully…
Features of criminals who have committed grave and especially grave crimes
The most characteristic group is made up of criminals, initially focused on committing selfishly motivated offenses. They are impulsive, aggressive, completely disregarding even those social norms of behavior that are public (i.e., not directly spelled out in the Criminal Code or the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). This group of people has practically no volitional or intellectual control.
Any moral and legal norm is perceived by them "with hostility", constant aggression and hostility to the environment is their "normal" behavior. So the personality of the offender during robberies is very "twitchy", unbalanced, withsome craving for manic behavior.
Strange as it may seem, but a person belonging to this kind of the underworld, despite his external "severity", is completely infantile and extremely weak-willed, he practically cannot control his base desires. A simple example is maniacs. Many of them "got burned" only because they continued to choose victims, doing it almost in front of police agents. They simply could not resist their aspirations, well aware of the danger and futility of this kind of behavior.
Thus, the subject of the crime and the personality of the offender are weakly connected in practice. Many still naively assume that the potential victim somehow "provoked" the killer or maniac, but this is not so: such persons themselves will find any pretext for committing an illegal act.
Features of rapists
This is especially pronounced in rapists, who, it should be noted, show incredible adaptability and ingenuity when it comes to achieving their goals. They are practically incapable of empathy, and in everyday life they are characterized by incredible callousness. Their behavioral control is also low.
Of course, that they differ in a pronounced dominant component of behavior, which, in fact, is expressed in rape (that is, the subject of the crime and the personality of the criminal are related as a slave-master). At the same time, obtaining sexual satisfaction in this case is generally in last place, since it is important for the rapist to gain confidence in hisdominance and power. In addition, such criminals have very poor social adaptation, often they cannot get a well-paid job, even if their intellectual data does not prevent this.
It turns out a vicious circle: a person cannot assert himself in a normal way, and therefore tries to “dominate” by regularly committing rape. The worse the rapist has in everyday life, the more insignificance he feels at the same time, the more cruel his crimes become. These signs of a criminal's personality are considered classics in criminology.
Killer Features
In general, all of the above features are quite characteristic of killers, but they also have some features that are clearly expressed in this particular group of criminals. Let us immediately warn that we do not consider any features of people who committed forced murders (with a direct threat to their lives or the lives of loved ones), as well as crimes committed in a state of passion. These people are completely normal, but, having found themselves in especially difficult and tragic conditions, they were forced to resort to extreme measures. All of the following is true only for "professionals".
Immediately draws attention to the highest impulsiveness and focus solely on their own interests. Even robbers are sometimes able to empathize and are aware that the life of a certain person is not worth taking away without unnecessary need. Assassins are the exact opposite. For them, the life of those aroundinsignificant … but they protect their own (most often). Many killers are prone to conflict and provocative actions, they are always aggressive and detached from society. These signs of the identity of the criminal prove how far from reality those who consider them "noble robbers." There is nothing but nobility in repeat offenders.
Such people are emotionally very unstable, their mood changes during the day no less than that of an inveterate drug addict. They are very subjective and biased in assessing the world around them, and therefore they can easily kill for an "aggressive" look. Paranoid caution, suspiciousness and vindictiveness flow smoothly from this. There are cases when such a criminal brutally killed a person who stepped on his foot a few years ago.
Under any circumstances that can even remotely be interpreted as a threat, such an individual is easily excited and takes all possible measures for "self-defense", that is, resorts to murder. So the psychological personality of the criminal is like a train with failed brakes, rushing downhill. Whatever the person in his path does, he is doomed.
"Fair" killings
A special feature of killers is rigidity, that is, inertness of thinking. Any trouble or life difficulty is considered by them as the intrigues of certain enemies. It is common for them to do this in order to relieve themselves of a subconscious feeling of their own infantilism and inability to cope with problems. It is not surprising that such an individual can easily kill a person who really "offended", even if this"Fault" - poorly inflated wheels in a car service. These are the key personality traits of the perpetrator.
It is fair to assume that killers have a painfully high self-esteem, they are extremely self-centered. It should be taken into account that it is the killers who easily adapt in all sorts of movements “for the rights of the disadvantaged”, since they, insisting on a “physical solution” to all issues, easily satisfy their needs “to take revenge on those who undeservedly received more”. That is why serial maniacs kill easily and naturally - after all, this is how they “do justice”, and therefore their conscience is clear. Under "justice" can be both the elimination of a person who puts his car in "their" parking space, and the excision of the entire family of the ex-wife / husband.
As a rule, all killers experience certain difficulties in social adaptation and even everyday communication. All problems that could be solved with a couple of phrases or a friendly joke, they can only solve with violence. These people learn moral and legal norms very poorly.
Average psychological portrait of a person convicted of especially serious crimes
According to statistics, for intentional especially serious crimes most often convicted are persons who have reached the age of 35-37 years, who were previously convicted (especially often for hooliganism), who have repeatedly been seen in the excessive use of alcohol or more “strong” psychotropic drugs. As a rule, such individuals have always been distinguished by increased cruelty, even at an early age (fromthis follows the thesis that the identity of the criminal=the criminal personality).
So, many serial killers beat their peers at school for friendly, kind jokes. With their own outspoken enemies, such people acted much tougher: many of these criminals ended up in special colonies for juveniles when they were not even 15 years old. Thus, the typology of the personality of the offender largely confirms the old opinion that many offenders are initially predisposed to commit illegal acts.
A "professional" offender is more often closed, has an increased tendency to fall into depressive states, he is overly sensitive, suspicious, and maniacs may experience an increased sense of guilt. The mood of a "chronic" criminal is rarely really good, as he is constantly tense (even subconsciously), looking for a dirty trick in the surrounding reality.
Contrary to the "cine" notions, many of the perpetrators of grave and especially grave crimes are not refined intellectuals at all, but people with a significantly reduced IQ. What else characterizes the identity of the offender? Crimes, even the most terrible ones, are presented by the offender's subconscious as "retribution". How does it work?
Many sociopaths tend to feel very sorry for themselves, attributing to themselves the "incredible suffering and anguish" that others allegedly caused them. This makes it much easier for the offender's personality to ignore what is happening and not feel any guilt for what they have done.
The criminal seesonly his profit, completely disregarding the opinions, feelings and lives of the people who are around him. Despite the outward composure and "tightness", in fact, he is not collected, any casual hobby easily puts it above the interests of the group. This is the reason for the weak internal cohesion of many gangs.
By the way, the high adaptability of hardened criminals to places of deprivation of liberty can be explained by the fact that their internal level of self-control is extremely low, so that such people are really more comfortable being in places where there is a strict internal routine. On the other hand, the need for restraint further exacerbates neurotic, anxious behavior. This is the standard typology of the criminal's personality.
Some conclusions
It should be noted that many criminals have severe mental trauma received either in childhood or in early adolescence. They are often most pronounced when the convict waits his turn on death row and begins to engage in introspection. Note that in these cases, a person can really repent, rethinking his delusions.
Finally, it is worth noting that the situation with organized crime in our country is becoming more and more alarming from year to year. It is generally accepted that after the "dashing 90s" all this is in the past … but statistics show that more and more contract killings are becoming. In connection with the crisis, they kill (most often) competitors and those people who voluntarily or unwittingly interfere with the "business" of shadow (and not only) businessmen. Law enforcement agencies testify that against the background of what is happening, relations within groups of criminals have become much tougher: today a person can be killed at the slightest suspicion of his cooperation with the police.
Here are the characteristics of the criminal's personality. This is a rather complicated area, but it is necessary to study it in order to understand the processes that take place in criminal communities.
