The Criminality and its Psychological Features

• Author: George Dorel Popa - Carmen Mariana Neagu
• Position: Senior Lecturer, PhD, Ovidius University of Constanta; Romania - Psychologist Specialist
• Pages: 91-94

Legal Sciences

91

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The Criminality and its Psychological Features

George Dorel Popa

1

, Carmen Mariana Neagu

2

Abstract: Preventing and fighting crime preoccupied a nd concerned humanity along its history. This concern

is fully justified because the crime is serious harm of the human interests, endangering fundamental values

and it is affecting the proper functioning of the social system. But what c onstitutes criminal behavior and how

the individual gets the specialized skills in the area of criminality? What is its specificity? Any society

appreciates the b ehavior of its members in terms of their compliance to the moral and legal rules. Failure to

follow these rules will lead to coercive or punitive measures. The collective programming of the mind gives

pattern for the individual behavior and about how the individual reacts. The reaction is observable in the

diversity of cultural patterns of individuals forming a society. A study recently elaborated by the Journal of

the Association for Psychological claims that people belonging to the different cultures perceive the aspects

of reality in a different way. The researchers found differences in how different cultures think about other

cultures. The originality of t his paper is consisting in understanding of criminality using the three factors that

define the formation and development of human personality. The added value of the paper come from

interdisciplinary presentation of the scourge of this age - criminality.

Keywords: criminality; punishment; behavior; legal rules; psychology

1. Biological Component

This paper highlights the conditions and factors that cause some psychological elements that lead to

crime. Evaluation of the nature of the human psyche and its ways of expression is the way the judicial

psychology develops its specific psychological concepts. This paper shows that legal psychology is a

special science studying psychosocial phenomena and in the same time, facts of individual, group or

collective. These phenomena arise from the communication and interaction between people in all their

social activities and appear in their conceptions, motivations, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors and

mentalities. Some of these are in accordance with rules established by society, but other are not fold

on these social standards. Study of crime and its psychological features could be a key for solving

many problems. This work may contribute to complex work of police, prosecutors or judicial

psychologists who daily fight against crime and its social consequences.Crime gets social

characteristics of special importance for the whole society, because the consequences “might be

crucial for the working way of the system” – (Anechitoae et al., 2007, pp. 32-40). The specialists

involved in studying the phenomenon of crime are primarily interested in causal explanation of it, but

also in the psychological aspects of criminality and criminal.

Social environment we are born and raised is a crucial element of our future behavior. People who are

born and live in an environment marked by crime are likely to commit crimes in a much higher rate

than those born and educated in a moral environment.

Cultural differences are obviously very deep in our thinking way, challenging the commonsense. In

this context, the main question is whether the way people react is predetermined (found in ontogenesis

of individual group membership) or receive fingerprint of the society where the person has been born

1

Senior Lecturer, PhD, Ovidius University of Const anta; Romania, 1 Aleea Universitatii, Constanta, Romania, Tel.: +40241-

511000/326 Fax: +40241-543045, Corresponding author: popageorgedrd@yahoo.com.

2

Psychologist Specialist, Constanta County Police Department; B-dul Mamaia, no. 106, Constanta 900527, Romania, tel.:

+40241611364, fax: 0241 / 61 61 50, e-mail: drept.secretariat@univ-ovidius.ro.