Deviant Crime Associations to Schizophrenia and Anti-Social Behaviors
The two most important fields of science that bind and give structure to the fabric of society is the nature of dissociative disorders such as schizophrenia and the associations to deviant criminal behavior. These fields are very intrinsically tied together to our criminal justice system and our social structure. The application of law within our legal system and the evaluation of a criminal's 'state of mind' are blended to provide safety for society. Determining the form of psychotherapy needed as a form of social rehabilitation is complex. Society needs deterrents for violent forms of crime associated with dissociative disorders but it requires a greater understanding of the functions of the brain. Even though each of these science fields are their own unique and complex structure of data, each of these fields are enhanced from the input of critical data from advancing fields of psychology and the study of the brain.
Criminology is only part of anti-social behavior which may include the causes, nature and control of such criminal behavior. Criminology focuses on criminals, while psychology is applied to understand the mind behind the criminal. Criminology deals with research into the cause, form and consequences of a crime. Psychopathology applies science useful in understanding the abnormalities in early development of the brain that contributed to the creation of the social deviant. It is necessary to include data from both fields to formulate hypothesis that state the nature of anti-social behaviors specifically relating to serious disorders such as schizophrenia. Applying the science of psychology to issues relating to violent crim...
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According to the Federal Bureau of Investigations website, psychopathy has been described as the single most important clinical construct in the criminal justice system. It goes on to say that the need to understand psychopathy cannot be overstated (FBI, 2013.) From environmental influence to biology, psychopathy can be looked at from several different angles. This paper examines current thinking about how the brain and its structures contribute to psychopathy.
Despite the controversy circled with psychopathy within the courts, the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, or psychopathy is never successful. Instead it serves as a determining factor for the prison sentence since psychopathic offenders are more likely to offend again and not be deterred (Siegel &
The focus of a psychologist’s study would be to identify the physical, social, mental and emotional issues within the environment that affect human psyche through a predisposition towards violence. This study would involve evaluation of personal life experiences of gang members, to identify the presence of common stressors and factors. Further investigation would be conducted to establish an understanding of how these factors initiate violence within the psyche.
Criminology is the scientific study of the causes and prevention of crimes. Criminology also uses a vast amount of theories to explain peoples’ actions, mental state, and their drive for committing crimes. Some crimes have monetary benefits, while other crime are committed in revenge or in spite of another, which would be called crimes of passion. Because it can be sometime difficult to understand why certain crime are committed, the only thing we can do is use theories to better decipher thoughts, morals, and reasons behind committing crimes.
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A startling amount of criminals on death row have been clinically diagnosed with brain disorders. A recent study has demonstrated that 20 out of 31 confessed killers are diagnosed as mentally ill. Out of that 20, 64% have frontal lobe abnormalities. (1) A thorough study of the profiles of many serial killers shows that many of them had suffered sever head injuries (to the frontal lobe) when they were children. To discover why damage to the frontal lobe could be a cause of serial killing, one must look at the function of the frontal lobe of the brain.
The brain is arguably the most complex part of a human being and is linked to motivations, feelings, and actions. Therefore, when actions of individuals differ from “normal” actions, the brain is brought into question. Repeat killers commit actions that are not “normal” when compared to the general public and therefore research on their brains has been conducted. When comparing scans of everyday citizens’ brains as opposed to the brain of a convicted serial killer, the differences are clear. The two scans differ widely with the prefrontal gray matter of the average person’s, dwarfing that of the murderer’s (Adams). Pr...
Riser, R. E., & Kosson, D. S. (2013). Criminal behavior and cognitive processing in male offenders with antisocial personality disorder with and without comorbid psychopathy. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 4(4), 332-340. doi:10.1037/a0033303
Literature Analysis and Research Proposal of the Correlation between Mental Illness and Violence and Crime Over the past few decades, many researches have strived to test and explain the correlation between violence and crime and mental illness. Moore and Hiday (2006) assert that up 22% of inmates has a mental illness, sometimes containing more mental illness patients than many psychiatric units. Due to these statistics it is evident how important it is to understand the causes of the correlations between crime and violence and mental disorders. This proposal wishes to explain and understand the possible correlation and the reasons for such correlation between mental health illnesses and violence and crime. Further research to test these theories of crime and mental disorders will also be presented.
Mental health and the criminal justice system have long been intertwined. Analyzing and understanding the links between these two subjects demands for a person to go in to depth in the fields of criminology, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry, because there are many points of view on whether or not a person’s criminal behavior is due to their mental health. Some believe that an unstable mental state of mind can highly influence a person’s decision of committing criminal actions. Others believe that mental health and crime are not related and that linking them together is a form of discrimination because it insinuates that those in our society that suffer from poor mental health are most likely to become a criminal due to their misunderstood behavior not being considered a normality in society. In this report I will go into detail of what mental health and mental illness is, what the differentiates a normal and a mentally unstable criminal, give examples of criminal cases where the defendant’s state of mind was brought up, introduce theories surrounding why one would commit crimes due to their mental health, and lastly I will discuss how the criminal justice system has been modified to accommodate mental health issues.
The field of criminology generally deals with criminology associated with the scientific study of different social behaviors, that have to do with causes of why certain individuals commit certain crimes. Criminologists basically research the why through the basis of psychological means as well as social means connected to the background of the individuals being studied. According to Schmalleger (2012), "there is a growing tendency,however, to reserve application of the term criminologists to academics, researchers, and policy analysts with advanced degrees who are involved in the study of crime and crime trends and in the analysis of societal reactions to crime" (p. 8). People engage in deviant acts because they have been labeled as deviant
There are various theories within the biological explanation as to why individuals commit criminal behaviour, these include: genetic theory, hereditary theory, psychosis and brain injury theory. In the next few paragraphs examples of each will be shown.