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Two Theories of Criminal Behaviour

In: Philosophy and Psychology

Submitted By bf328772
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Two theories of criminal behaviour and their factors

Developmental theories of crime
A study performed by a psychologist Terri Moffitt (1993), she described a dual taxonomy of offending behaviour, and she attempted to explain the developmental processes that can lead to a distinctive shape of the age crime curve. Her original views was that the theory is one of the more important articles in criminology and proposes that there are two types of anti-social behaviour offender’s display in society. Adolescent offender’s exhibit anti-social behaviour only during their adolescent stages these are called limited adolescent offenders, whereas life-course-persistent offenders behave like this early in the childhood stages and continue to behave this way as a part of life until it becomes more serious in adult life. This theory focuses more on the anti-social aspects of crime as there are different definitions of crime across cultures and due to the similar characteristics and trajectories this theory can then be applied to both of the sexes.
There are recognised disorders than can contribute to crime and that form criminals, in some cases not because they want to but because of a disorder such as (ASPD) Anti-social Personality Disorder. It is recognised by the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders 4th edition) in most cases individual who display anti-social behaviour have been convicted and gone through court processes without being diagnosed. This disorder can include different clusters from an extreme level to of illness to some less severe; cluster A categorises people with being paranoid, schizoid and schizotypal. Cluster B the more dramatic symptoms are; antisocial, borderline, histrionic and narcissistic, cluster C are the more anxious offenders they show symptoms of; avoidance, dependant of themselves, obsessive or compulsive. Finally

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