Criminal is a freak behavior aimed at maiming or inflicting any social, psychological or physical pain on someone. Criminal behavior is considered hazardous to the community, and thus, laws should take its course in cases such are identified. It therefore paramount for any person interested in the criminal laws field to have background knowledge of what makes people commit illegal behaviors in the society. Such individuals should try to understand what motivates a person to commit an offense ( DeLisi & Vaughn, 2014). It will help them understand the criminals better and make a rational decision in case they are faced with. There are theories which attempt to explain the freak behaviors behind the crimes. Examples of such theories are biological, psychological and classical theories. These theories attempt to link criminal behaviors with some factors in the environment, nature, and personalities of individuals. These theories have similarities and differences as shall be explained in this article.
Similarities
According to DeLisi and Vaughn (2014), there are numerous similarities between the three theories of criminal behaviors. First, all these theories try to link criminal behaviors to some factors and thus help in explaining criminal behaviors. For instance, classical links criminal behavior with an individual's rational decision, on the other hand, biological behaviors links criminal behaviors with the person's genetically traits, and lastly, psychological theory try to explain the criminal behavior on the individual mental state's point of view. Secondly, the theories provide hope to the public that though crime is a kind of destructive behaviors, it is possible to tame if the law can take its course. This means that for every law, the control method of such behaviors is provided. All these theories try to explain ways through which these criminals maybe handle based on the traits. Lastly, all these theories attempt to give evidence of determinants of criminals’ motivation to act in a criminal’s manner.
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Differences
There are numerous differences which make each of these theories unique in the way they try to explain these criminal behaviors. For instance, classical theory has it that an individuals' free will causes criminals act. This theory postulate that human being is free to make a decision that is rational. It further claims that people make rational decision which they understand their consequences ( Morizot, 2015). For instance, a criminally minded individual makes a criminal decision at free will, and they usually know the consequences of such behaviors. It further means that such decisions are always the choices that they make while they are sober. On the other hand, biological theory postulate that genes inheritance causes criminal behaviors. According to this theory, genes are a major factor which influences the behavior of an individual. In case one is a criminal, this theory assumes that such individual had criminal parent or ancestors and thus he or she inherited the genes. Such people have a great potential of passing the criminal behaviors to the next generation according to the biological theory.
The last theory is a psychological theory. According to this theory, criminal behavior is as a result of differences that people possess based on their thinking process. It is notable that there is numerous psychological theory and all are geared towards explaining criminal behaviors in different ways. However, all of them seems to be admitted that people's thoughts and feelings are the major contributors to their criminal thoughts. Some of the psychological issues which are pointed out by these theories include failure in psychological developments. These are individuals who fall into the trap because they are easily convinced by others since they did not mature well psychologically. There’s the learned behaviors of violence as well as aggression. In this case, those who lived with violent or aggressive people such as criminal tend to act the same way. Other include mental illness and the inherent personal behaviors.
The next difference between these theories is their interventions approaches the criminal behaviors. These theories have unique ways of explaining the interventions to criminal behaviors ( Pratt, 2016). For instance, psychological theory believes that the corrective measure against such behaviors is psychological related therapies. On the other hand, classical theory believes that the best way to deter criminal behavior is severe punishments as this will change the will of such individuals. Lastly, the biological theory postulates that in case those people who have criminal genes can be identified and sterilized; then it is possible for the criminal behavior related evens to be done away with and this will create a scenario where there will be less of such traits in the populace.
The best theory
It is worthy to note that each of these theories has their distinctive ways of explaining the criminal behavior. However, the best of all these theories seem to be the psychological approach which states that people's thinking and mind are great contributors to criminal behaviors. Today, most criminal are associated with psychological issues. This is issues which are brought about by the high rate of drug abuse and other violent acts (Maguire & Duffee, 2015). Further, most criminal behaviors are caused by those who are psychologically influenced by their friends and relatives. This is the kind of issues which are currently reported to course criminal activities in the world. The fact that these are some of the issues explained by the psychology theory makes it the best of all.
References
DeLisi, M., & Vaughn, M. G. (2014). Foundation for a temperament-based theory of antisocial behavior and criminal justice system involvement. Journal of Criminal Justice , 42 (1), 10-25.
Maguire, E. R., & Duffee, D. E. (Eds.). (2015). Criminal justice theory: Explaining the nature and behavior of criminal justice . Routledge.
Morizot, J. (2015). 10 The Contribution of Temperament and Personality Traits to Criminal and Antisocial Behavior Development and Desistance. In The development of criminal and antisocial behavior (pp. 137-165). Springer, Cham.
Pratt, T. C. (2016). A self-control/life-course theory of criminal behavior. European Journal of Criminology , 13 (1), 129-146.
