Psychological Theories of Teenage Crime

Introduction

In the recent era ofglobalisation, the numbers of crime rate are increasing year by year and it has been seen that, among the teenagers, the intention to do crime is high as compared to the other age group in the society (Pennington, 2018). There are several reasons for which the teenager’s crime rate is high such as financial hardship, depression, drug and alcohol abuse, lack of affection from family and bullying which leads the teenagers to conduct crime in the society (Jolliffeand Farrington, 2018; Peckand Whitlow, 2019). Through this study, it is possible to discuss two different psychological theories and concepts which indicates the factors that leads the person towards crime. The similarities and differences between two theories will also be evaluated where the two theories are such as behavioural theory and the theory of personality and crime. Through these two theories and concepts, it is possible to evaluate the mindset and the personality of the teenagers for which they are doing crime in the society.

Theory of personality and crime

Personality of the human being reshapes the individual and it is constant over time and as per the theory there is high relationship between individual personality and crime. The model suggests that there are five factors such as neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness (Greenberg, Tamarelliand Kelley, 2018). Neuroticism is related to the emotional stability where the individual can manage their emotion including anger, stress, depression and sadness. There are some individual with high neuroticism, who have irrational ideas, uncontrollable impulses and anxiety that they cannot control and apart from that, low neuroticism person is considered to be calm and relaxed where they can manage their anger and emotion successfully (Pennington, 2018). Extraversion is characterised by sociability, excitement and stimulation where the individuals can scope high who are active, talkative, assertive and extrovert and can express their feelings. In contrast, introvert person cannot express their feelings and they are considered as reserved, independent and shy (Peck and Whitlow, 2019).

The third is openness where the person is active, imaginativeand attentive about their feelings and understanding and the fourth domain is agreeableness and it is related to individualtendencies. High score person in this category is considered to be forgiving, sympathetic, trusting and soft-hearted and low score person is hard hearted, intolerant, impatient and argumentative (Peck and Whitlow, 2019). The fifth domain in this theory is conscientiousness which focuses on person’s ability to control their impulse and exercise self-control. In this regard, among the teenagers there is high neuroticism, low openness and extraversion as well as low agreeableness and conscientiousness for which they are introvert and cannot control their emption which leads them towards attending crime in the society (Greenberg, Tamarelliand Kelley, 2018; Pennington, 2018).

Behavioural theory

The behavioural theory is also another important concept for defining the trend of teenagers and crime where according to thetheoreticalconcept the human behaviour is developed through learning experiences. The behavioural of the person is changing as per their reactions and experienced (Walters, 2018). The individual is not born with an innate ability to act violently, but violence and aggression are learned through the behavioural modelling. In this model, there are fourdomain which are family interaction, environmentalexperiences and mass medio. Family interaction is necessary to reshape human behaviour, wand in this regard, the person who are aggressive, are more likely to be brought up by the parents or the caregivers who are aggressive (Hampson, 2019).

The second domain is environmentalexperiences which suggests that, the behaviour of the human being depends on environmentaland it has been that, the person who are aggressive, are staying beside crime prone areas (Walters, 2018). In this regard, manifestation of unconventional behaviour includesthe inability of gets proper unemployment, rude behaviour, drug and alcohol abuse and failure to obey the laws (Pennington, 2018). The third source behavioural problem is the influence of mass medio which is high in the recent era of digitalisation where the individuals are influenced by the activities in the mass media (Hampson, 2019). Media violence in this regard enable the children and the teenagers to justify their aggressive behaviour and it is more likely to inflict harm among the teenagers where the teenagers are subject to a violent assault, verbal hackling or insults, disparagement and inability to achieve their goal (Pennington, 2018; Sosnowska et al., 2019).

Similarities between the theories

Both the above-mentioned theories are related to personality and trend among the teenagers for which they are conducting crime in the society (Sosnowska et al., 2019). The theories are effective to develop interpersonal relationship with the family members by being extrovert and open minded so that the teenagers can interact with their family members and share good knowledge and understanding to set goal and achieve the objective in their life. On the contrary, if there is no good relationship among the family members as well as absence of proper interaction, the teenagers feel alone, and they become depressed out of which they are conducting crime (Walters, 2018). Both the theories are effective to discuss the behaviour of aggressiveness, where the environmentalfactors such as crime prone areas influences the teenagers to behave with aggression and dominance as per the behavioural theory (Sosnowska et al., 2019).

On the other hand, as per the theory of personality and crime, the individual cannot control their anger depression and sadness who have low score in neuroticism (Walters, 2018). Additionally, as per the domain of conscientiousness in the theory of personality and crime, the person is not able to control their impulse and exercise self-control and on the other hand, as per the cognitive theory, the environmentalfactorsdoes not let the person to handle the situation with calm as aggressiveness further leads the person towards impatient and intolerance in the society which the person become self-destructive with drug and alcohol abuse or committing crime in the society (Satchell et al., 2018).

Differences between the theories

The personality and crimedescribe inner personality and behaviour of the teenagersfor which they are committing crime. However, the cognitive behavioural theory describesenvironmentalfactors and other external influencessuch as mass media and family which reshape the behaviour of the individual (Walters, 2018). Hereby, the behavioural theory is more concerned about the environmentalfactors and the experience gathered during the life span of the teenagers that reshape the behaviour and personality of the teenagers. In the recent years, mass media and external environment where the people are living has influential impacts on the behaviour and personality of the individuals (Satchell et al., 2018).

On the contrary, the personality and crime theory is mainly related to the interpersonal behaviour and personality of the individual such as neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness where the low scorer are willing to commit crime of which there is high crime rate in the society (Sosnowska et al., 2019). Additionally, family interaction plays a crucial role in reshaping human behaviour and personality and in the behavioural theory, the domain of family interaction is beneficial to understand the social structure of the family, interactionand relationship of the person with his or her family member where lack of interaction, poor relationship, lack of trust and poor communication raisesdepression and stress, anxiety among the individuals which leads them to commit crime in the society (Hampson, 2019).

Conclusion

It can be concluded that, both the theories of personality and crime and behavioural theory are beneficial, and these are important psychological theories to describe the context of teenagers and crime. In the recent years, there is high numbers of teenagers who are engaged with crime in the society. As per the behavioural theory, low family interaction, living in high crimeproneareas, brought up of the children by the aggressive parents or care givers as well as mass media are major influentialfactors that reshape the human behaviour to commit crime. On the other hand, as per the theory of personality and crime, low neuroticism, introvert person, lack of openness, poor agreeableness and low conscientiousness influence the person to be self-destructive and they become unable to achievetheir aim in their life where they are willing to commit crime. Both the theories are effective to understand the factors that reshape personality and behaviour of the teenagers, but the behaviour theory mainly focuses on external environmental factors which have influential impacts among the teenagers to commit crime.

Reference List

Greenberg, D.F., Tamarelli, R. and Kelley, M.S., 2018. The generality of the self-control theory of crime. In Crime and Social Organization (pp. 67-112). Routledge.

Hampson, S.E., 2019. The construction of personality: An introduction. London: Routledge.

Jolliffe, D. and Farrington, D.P., 2018. Personality and Other Individual Influences on Offending. The Oxford Handbook of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology, p.355.

Peck, D. and Whitlow, D., 2019. Approaches to personality theory. London: Routledge.

Pennington, D., 2018. Essential personality. London: Routledge.

Satchell, L.P., Bacon, A.M., Firth, J.L. and Corr, P.J., 2018. Risk as reward: Reinforcement sensitivity theory and psychopathic personality perspectives on everyday risk-taking. Personality and Individual Differences, 128, pp.162-169.

Sosnowska, J., Kuppens, P., De Fruyt, F. and Hofmans, J., 2019. A dynamic systems approach to personality: The Personality Dynamics (PersDyn) model. Personality and Individual Differences, 144, pp.11-18.

Walters, G.D., 2018. Personality and crime: Mediating the agreeableness–offending and conscientiousness–offending relationships with proactive and reactive criminal thinking. Personality and Individual Differences, 129, pp.166-170.