Increasing criminal instinct in children who is responsible?
Criminal instinct, is somewhere quite different from criminal behaviour. The habitual committing of criminal acts or offences by a young person, especially one below the age at which ordinary criminal prosecution is not possible is delinquency.
Modern theories and speculation have linked many factors to this, capitalism is held as the main culprit, socio-economic status, gender, age, and other demographics have been woven in with interdisciplinary studies, while the studies of the twentieth century had focused on the physiology of the body.
Pattern and manifestation:
Age is a major determinant of criminal behavior, initial offenders are usually young in teens or early twenties, it then tends to decrease with age. This could be due to social responsibilities taking precedence. However white collar crimes, and crimes that need meticulous planning like fraud, are often carried out by older individuals.
When it comes to gender, historically and sociologically men seem to be responsible for majority of criminal behavior. This could be testosterone sponsors more violent and risky behavior. The violent aggressive male behavior is accepted. At times the behavior pattern encouraged is allegedly “tough masculine” which in turn legitimizes violence. Though of late women committing violent crimes is rising,
The neighborhood, or the geographic location where a person grows up also influences the behavior. Violent, gang wars might be more common in a economically lower geographic expanse. While the white collar crimes and drugs could be higher in the wealthier suburbs.
Risk factors for criminal behavior:
Prof. Ansari the paediatric forensic expert of the California juvenile detention cell, came up with a study where he discovered the tendency for delinquency was inherited. It would manifest and the gravity of manifestation depended on the risk factors the child was exposed to.
There is a basic quality called the criminal thinking. It includes criminal nationalization or justification of the criminal behavior, these people who blame others for their behavior and show an absolute lack of remorse.
There kids with criminal peers, they tend to associate with people with criminal activities. They are often involved in substance abuse. The children do not involve themselves in engaging with society productively. They will be disruptive under peer pressure.
Some children have an antisocial personality which manifests as atypical behavior like running away from home, skipping school, getting into fights, possessing weapons, lying stealing and generally damage property.
Lack of family support is a major trait, a dysfunctional family is not able to provide emotional support or any other support to solve problems. Children coming from homes where communication not open, they could be exposed to violence in their family environment tend to exhibit violent behavior.
The current generation has a very low attention span and tends to react in the here and now, without thinking out the consequence of their behavior. This takes impulsive behavior or low self control tends to make people do things they did not plan this results in unsavory situations.
Mental illness is often associated with crimes. Yet there is 44% decrease in institutional care or remand homes with proper diagnosis and medication.is That would translate while some mental disorders can aggravate a delinquent tendency it is not causative.
Coming to the socio-economic status, 20% of the children who come from low income homes get charged with crimes, (this is in the urban set up) 16% are from lower middle income families while 12% are from high income families. about 80% of them are school drop outs. This could mean higher education and steady income could decrease the tendency to delinquency.
On the whole these are theories none which are sacrosanct. A person can come from a perfect background with supportive family, affluence, college education, great job yet commit the most violent crimes, as much as a person coming from absolutely challenged section of the society could go to become a productive inspiring member of the society, look at Indrani and Oprah as examples
On a reflective note…
look at the movies we make we have the protagonists who take to violence and crime, they are glorified and turned to icons. Even our history tends to glorify the disruptive characters the rebels and we tend to look down on leaders who let the invader be, but ensured that his people became progressive. I am speaking of the Mysore Maharaja here, he is forgotten or presented in very poor light in history despite the progressive ventures that his government undertook.
At the end of the day society prepares the crime and the criminal commits it.
written for 197 edition of indispire.