The major emphasis of criminology is to understand why people engage in crime. One of the main explanations is based on psychological theories that explain how criminal activities develop. The theories focus on how individual characteristics may lead to a violent event after interacting with the environment. The theories provide information about how mental processes impact an individual's ability to commit a violent act. The psychological theories outline the relationship between personality, intelligence, learning, and aggressive behavior ( Miller, 2017) . The psychological theoretical framework in criminology discussion is based on cognitive, psychodynamic and behavioral theories. The models provide information about processes by which behavior and its refrains are learned or lead to crime. Psychological theories examine individual factors that can lead to criminal thinking patterns.
Sigmund Freud developed psychodynamic theory. The psychologist believed that the three central forces of personality: id, ego and superego, which an individual acquires during childhood, are important in shaping their character ( McKeown, & Harvey, 2018) . The ego helps people understand social norms, whereas the id represents the individual's instinct needs. The superego outlines how an individual can learn moral reasoning. Imbalance in the three personality forces results in delinquent behavior, and conflicting issues between ego, id and superego force an individual to develop a defensive mechanism that can allow them to cope with the conflict. Id element of human personality leads to criminal behavior since it is concerned with instant gratification. People tend to engage in criminal activity to satisfy their desires, and other elements of personality do not offer moral reasoning due to the imbalance created ( McKeown & Harvey, 2018) . The element prevents one from considering that they are infringing the safety or pleasure of other people. In most cases, offenders are only concerned with themselves, making it hard to control their personality elements. Psychodynamic theory suggests that offenders also engage in criminal activities due to the undeveloped superego. The mechanism prevents one from incorporating moral standards and values of the community into their personality. Absence or weak ego is linked to frustration, which makes a person commit a crime. People with weak egos engage in crime-related causative factors such as drug abuse.
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The behavioral theory of psychology maintains that human behavior and norms such as violence are learned through interaction with society. People are not born with violent dispositions; however, they learn to act or think aggressively due to the experiences they are subjected to on a daily basis. A core concept in behavioral theory is the reinforcement of a wrong behavior by the environment. Association with criminals or those who glorify the wrong deeds causes an increase in criminal behavior. For instance, experiences such as observing adoration of wrongdoing in society have led to criminal behaviors among its members. Bilsky & Hermann (2016) v iew that people who live in violent societies learn to perfect aggressive behavior from their neighbors. Behavioral theorists also suggest that stressful event such as assault, aggressive skills learned from others, value systems that condone crime, and belief that violence will be rewarded also contributes to the development of crime perpetrators (Miller, 2017) . People learn from the actions of others, and this shapes their life experiences in crime.
Cognitive theory focuses on the perception of people to their social environment. Psychologists argue that the moral development of a person is important in studying criminal behavior. People go through six different stages in moral development, which helps in explaining delinquency and crime. In the first stage of moral development, people are forced by circumstances such as being afraid of punishment to obey the law. However, by the sixth stage, people obey the law since they view it as universal principles of justice, respect and equality. As Walters (2016) outlined, people who obey the law to avoid punishment are more likely to engage in criminal activities. People who fear punishment or view that obeying the law is an obligation have lower moral reasoning, and if presented with an opportunity to engage in crime, they will not refrain. Such types of people also are prone to engage in criminal activities if they view that they will not be punished. Cognitive theory in crime also suggests that violent-prone individuals engage in complex thought processes in decision-making ( Miller, 2017) . They encode and interpret information incorrectly to favor their actions before making a decision. For example, youths who engage in crime see other people as more threatening than they are. The perception allows them to react to violence if slightly provoked. As such, aggressive people engage in violent acts due to misinterpretation. Most believe that they are defending themselves when, in an actual sense, their aggressive behaviors prompted them to engage in violent acts. According to a finding by Walters (2016) , processing information issues causes offenders to engage in harmful activities and, at the same time, prevents them from recognizing that they are wrong. Offenders fail to develop their moral judgment beyond the pre-conventional level.
When examining psychological theories associated with crime, one should be mindful of psychodynamic, behavioral, and cognitive theories. The psychodynamic theory is centered on an individual's personality elements. It is grounded in childhood, and it influences one's likelihood of committing a crime in the future. The behavioral theory is based on the idea that one's susceptibility to crime is learned through environmental interaction. Societal interactions play an important role in social learning and behavior modeling. Cognitive theory suggests that an individual ability to commit a crime is associated with how one perceives their social environment. People engage in crime depending on their moral development. Individuals with weak moral development are prone to criminal activities, unlike those with strong values.
References
Bilsky, W., & Hermann, D. (2016). Individual values and delinquency: On considering universals in the content and structure of values. Psychology, Crime & Law , 22 (10), 921-944. https://doi.org/10.1080/1068316X.2016.1202250
McKeown, A., & Harvey, E. (2018). Violent women: treatment approaches and psychodynamic considerations. Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice . https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRPP-08-2017-0025
Miller, L. (2017). Psychological Theories of Criminal Behavior. In Handbook of Behavioral Criminology (pp. 43-62). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61625-4_4
Walters, G. D. (2016). Crime continuity and psychological inertia: Testing the cognitive mediation and additive postulates with male adjudicated delinquents. Journal of Quantitative Criminology , 32 (2), 237-252. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-015-9262-9
