Psychology of crime

This leaves us with the elusive search to connect the human mind to behaviour, and the challenge to make such search as “scientific” as possible. Nevertheless, crime cannot be properly understood, prevented or managed without a good understanding of the “mind” of the offender — alongside conditions.

Last week’s trial in the US over the mass murder of nine black members of an historic church in South Carolina raised the crucial, trial-bending question of why the accused (now convicted), Dylann Roof, committed this hideous “hate” crime? Against opposing conclusions, he strongly denied that he is insane, crazy. He said he did it to create a “race war.” “Why” — the driving motive for committing a crime and deciding a verdict has long been a crucial trial question. It is “mens rea” reflecting the psychological state of the offender, especially at the time of the offence. In his paper, The Mental Element in Crime, at the Seventh Commonwealth Magistrates Conference in Cyprus, Judge Petrus Artemis, provided a list of such psychological conditions — from “with intent,” “maliciously,” “corruptly,” “knowingly,” to “”recklessly.” The unravelling of the criminal mind has played intriguing parts in court-room trials, detective movies and even in psychometric testing for employment. Who did it and why? Motivation, the chances or fear of being caught, the perception of opportunity, stigmatised self-esteem, etc are some of the driving, personalised psychological conditions towards crime. You may be surprised to know how much the search for “peer respect” leads to gang violence.

Then, pulling towards crime are peer pressures, a breakdown of civic norms, alienation, criminogenic family or community conditions, inequality and failures in education system, ineffective deterrence, unfair social or economic deprivation, etc.

However, there is the scientifically- challenging question of why, in the face of one or more of these factors, not everyone commits a crime.

This is where, for example, the view that “poverty causes crime” can have short-comings. All in all, there are “push” factors for crime, and there are “pull” factors for crime. Some conditions create upward conditions, other conditions facilitate and invite crime. Hence I look forward to making the time to researching the minds (attitudes, motives, values etc) of our convicted prisoners, and school drop-outs, young criminals and the facilitating conditions..

Criminology, too, has its challenges of definition and research, starting from the early 1974 definition as “the study of the processes of making laws, breaking laws and reacting towards the breaking of laws.” It is now also a study of criminals and the relevant institutions and agencies that deal with crime and criminal justice — a study of people, institutions and conditions. From all this emerged a wide range of research and books – The Psychology of Crime (Feldman, 1993); The Psychology of Criminal Conduct (Andrews and Bonta, 1994); The Social Psychology of Crime (Canter and Alison, 2000): The Psychology of the Legal System (Wrightsman et al, 2008) etc. And, further, if you wish for a reality check on whether or not “justice is blind,” read the early Law: The Science of Inefficiency by Wm Seagle and Errors of Justice by Brian Forst.

Several reputable universities have specialised Centres of Criminology – most of which contain a strong psychological component. In my short stay at Oxford University Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, I witnessed the significant extent to which psychological research assisted in developing criminal justice policies — from eyewitness testimony, policing, trial by jury to sentencing.

Hence, I was fortunate and grateful to UWI for agreeing to my proposal to establish both a Psychological Research Centre and a related Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice.

And for the University of Trinidad and Tobago for establishing the Institute of Criminology and Public Safety. The purpose of today’s column is to help promote the view that in order to understand, prevent, manage and solve crime, the disciplines of crimi n o l o g y and psyc h o l o g y are quite u s e f u l par tner s in application.