What Causes Criminal Behavior
Criminal behavior can be caused by various factors that encompass any normal human interactions. Social, physical, and psychological influences are direct input to our personality and character. What sways belief and influences our day to day behavior is what we interact with. What we feed our brains influences our thought process. We should strive to guard our minds and hearts against external and internal forces that might sway our actions into criminal behavior. Such vigilance keeps us away from mischievous actions that might grow into harmful behavior. But sometimes the filtering cannot be regulated because impressions might be genetic. Sometimes as a child, our brains are easily impressionable, making them susceptible to learning harmful behavior. When behavior becomes learned, it becomes permanent and can be unlearnt, but sometimes the damage is irreversible.
Those that exhibit criminal behavior have various motivators. Some are motivated by the flashy lifestyle they see with capable friends they cannot afford. Reasons, too, for criminal behavior can be anger, revenge, pride, jealousy, or pride. Most crimes are planned to gain maximumly and decrease the risk of getting caught. Sometimes these crimes, especially for adrenaline junkies, involve themselves in criminal behavior for its thrill. Others commit crimes impulsively, out of rage or fear. Sometimes rage and fear can lead to committing murder. Thefts that involve those who desire control and power lead to violent crimes such as assault, rape, and even loss of life. But some factors lead to criminal behavior; these are but are not limited to parental relations, heredity and brain activity, hormones, education, peer influence, and drugs and alcohol.
Drugs and alcohol impair our judgment greatly and reduce our inhibitions. Criminal behavior is easy to fall into when one cannot afford to support their indulgences. Especially when dealing with addictions, one falls easily into the crime decision process to satisfy their addictions. When under the influence, drugs inhibit one’s judgment giving them the courage to commit a crime. While in drinking dens and bars, confrontations break out more often than not due to the altered ability to judge. Stranger violence is more often than not triggered by alcohol and substance abuse, a crime in which the victim has no relationship with the attacker. The frequenting of isolated areas to access drugs and alcohol makes this drug users targets by criminals. Drug users are less attentive to the environment around them, becoming easy criminal targets.
Peer influence steers most of the actions in life. We generally do what our friends do and participate in activities our friends are involved in. Their friends easily influence young boys and girls into harmful habits. Others can be bullied into committing a crime. Young girls and boys are easy targets for drug peddling, and they too recruit their friends (Kruttschnitt, Candace, Linda, and David pg.245, 1986). The fear of missing out too drives them into crime. Flashy lifestyle by a few can drive them into crime too. Lack of necessities for young girls drives them into crime and underage prostitution.
Lack of adequate education drives most young people into criminal activity. They cannot get a means of sustenance, and they have needs that are supposed to be satisfied. They become easy prey for crime lords and gangs too. Being members of such gangs accords them the respect that they cannot get in their day to day lively hood. Not forgetting just how expensive education is and, most often than not, minimum wages for high school diplomas cannot adequately satisfy familial needs. Even from prison surveys, inmates have meager education if not minimal (Feldman, pg.282 1977).
Hormones affect especially teenagers and young adults. Testosterone, when in uncontrollable levels, might make young men sexual offenders as they need guidance in navigating new bodily development (Tehrani, Jasmine, and Sarnoff pg.24 2000). Cortisol, too, at high levels, make most of us active and attentive. Low levels lead to isolation and anti-social life, which encourages criminal activity. It is said that sometimes adults with low cortisol levels are numb to common normal reactions such as fear of committing a crime or getting caught in the process of committing a crime.
Parental relations are a great influence on how well-adjusted children become. Good parental relations give children a sense of belonging and a generally positive outlook on life (Viemerö, Vappu, pg.90, 1996). Growing such children are less susceptible to most of the behaviors and vices listed above. Parents are our source of heredity and brain activity. An involved parent is likely to offer a well-developed child who becomes an adult who deals well and adjusts easily into different situations. The adaptability of well brought up children is better in comparison to those in foster care or orphanages. Rarely do children turn away from ingrained known behavior, and if they do turn, very few do fall into extreme criminal behavior as the conscious as been nurtured to know right and wrong.
Criminal behavior is something that can be corrected very early on in anyone’s life. The most basic requirements of children are love and care. Satisfying a child’s needs most of the time, averts bad behavior cultivation. The saying goes, bend a tree when it is young to streamline it in the way you want it to grow. We are the sole controllers of our destinies, and cultivating better habits becomes second nature, which grows to be our character.
Work cited
Feldman, Maurice Philip. “Criminal behavior: A psychological analysis.” (1977): 282.
Kruttschnitt, Candace, Linda Heath, and David A. Ward. “Family violence, television viewing habits, and other adolescent experiences related to violent criminal behavior.” Criminology 24.2 (1986): 235-266.
Tehrani, Jasmine A., and Sarnoff A. Mednick. “Genetic Factors and Criminal Behaviors.” Fed. Probation 64 (2000): 24.
Viemerö, Vappu. “Factors in childhood that predict later criminal behavior.” Aggressive Behavior: Official Journal of the International Society for Research on Aggression 22.2 (1996): 87-97.