CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR - HOW IT DEVELOPS

Why do some people become criminals ? Is it merely because they are evil, wicked or bad. Or is it more complicated than that ? Criminal are all different , so they are all likely to affend for different reasons. There is no one simple explanation for criminal behaviour. We should not forget that many people break tehe law every day and do not get caught. We all know people who break teh lawa, but who are never arrested. They are classed as "non-criminal". Others who commit the same offences, but are caught : are classed as "criminals".
To understand criminal behaviour we have to consider some factors (David J. Copke, Pamela J. Baldwin, and Jacqueline Howison, 1990) :

1. Early Environment
A person's early environment can set them off along the path towards criminality. It is almost a cliche that criminals come from a "broken home". It is true that a lot of criminals come from home where their parents were separated or divorced. If their father get into fights, breaks into houses, steals car or sells heroin, then these forms of criminal behaviour are seen as normal by children. If they do not excercise any control or discipline, so the chances of the child getting into delinquent habits are much greater. This raises two important points : the quality of yor upbringging - how your parents looked after you - rather than where you are brought up which seems to matter. Second, some people seem to be vulnerable to bad influences. Some people who are exposed to bad influences are unaffected by them, others - the vulnerable people - start breaking the law. Human behaviour is complex.

2. Heredity
It is different to unravel the influences of heredity from the influence of early upbringging. People inherit criminal tendencies, it is little evidence. The most people genetic theory of recent years was the XYY theory. An extra Y chromosome made men become aggressive psychopaths. But you could not distinguish between the behaviour of "normal" men and the behaviour of XYY men.

3. Socio-economic status
They are unemployed they are more likely to commit crimes than when they are in employment. They are unemployed they have more oppurtunity to commit crime.

4. Current living circumstances
How you are living and where you are living seem to effect criminal behaviour; the acts of vandalism seem easy to commit.

5. Crises and negative events
Crises and negative events in our lives can cause all sort of psychological problems. Negative events can trigger problems from anxiety an depression. Negative events can also lead to effending.