Why people do crimes?

非专业; 参考书目:《犯罪心理学》

Why do people do crimes?

We are all familiar with the word "Crime". It has been in our society throughout the ages. But with the progress of society and development of science and technology, Crime is very different from the past. The means and methods of crime are various, and the reasons are even more complicated. What's more, we are facing a problem of lowering ages of criminal offenders. Therefore, it quite necessary and important for us to study why people do crimes.

  So, why do people do crimes?

  Recently, I read a book called Criminal Psychology. Of course I am very interested in this topic and I also want to have an experience of being Shevlock Holmes. Firstly, we must figure out what is crime. According to this book, Crime is a kind of social behavior which brings (extremely) bad influence to others. And there is a relationship between perpetrators and victims. So, when a man thinks someone is very annoying and disturbing, he really wants to kill that man. This is just an idea among his mind. This psychological process is not crime itself. But if the man couldn't bear that and killed another man with a knife. Then, it's a crime. And the man needs to take the legal responsibility.

    Actually, what we have seen are the consequences of crimes or the criminal behaviors. If we want to know the reasons, we must analyze the criminal psychology of the doers. In the book, Criminal psychology refers to a general term for various psychological factors which can affect or dominate people to commit crimes, including the cognition, emotion, will, ability, temperament, personality, need, motive, belief, value, mental state and etcetera.

    Here is a question: How do people form Criminal psychology?

  There is a flow chart in this book, and I think it's reasonable. So, I quote it.(Translated by myself(๑• . •๑).

Why people do crimes?

  In this process, I think the personality defects and lack of inhibition are quite crucial reasons. There are many factors to influence the formation of criminal personality. For example, Poverty. It's not uncommon that the psychological unbalance caused by the gap of wealth leads to the psychological distortion and revenge. In addition, the stress or pressure and psychological shadow from the society or family can cause people to go insane too. Also, the wrong model such as the propensity for violence of parents and violent acts from TV or other media will influence people's psychology. And in the end of this process, people determine to do crimes under the control of their criminal psychology. Then, he keeps self-reinforcing. After the psychological processing of those negative information, he forms criminal motive. Then, he implements criminal activities. If he isn't found or caught by the police, it's much easier for him to be a recidivism and does crimes again.

  There is always a process from quantitative change to qualitative change for crimes. For instance, one day, a man, on the street, found a car unlocked and he saw a purse in it. At this time, he took the purse without resisting the temptation. This windfall brought him great convenience and benefits. Then .next time, when he wandered around the street again, he will look for the unlocked cars. But it disappointed him that all the cars were locked. Then, he felt frustrated and annoying. As the increasing of psychological unbalance, an idea came into his mind:"Why don't I prise the car door and take the money away?" Then, he did this behavior and that means the occurrence of the qualitative change. Obviously, he committed a crime.

    Apart from the internal factors of psychology and physiology, there are some external factors that affect the crimes, such as the big social environment, family and school, the working or living place and some situations and so on.

    In the following part, I want to use a case to analyze the including crimes. Zhou is a college student. At the first month of schooling, he took away 1800 RMB of his roommate. Later, he took away his classmate's mobile phone and walkman again. Zhou said he wanted to sell these things for some money as his living expenses. However, the conscientious condemnation made it impossible for him to sell his classmate's things. So, he kept them in his own box. Because of poverty,,he also tried to earn money in many ways but all was in vain. This is related to his introversion. Zhou said he knew that he did wrong things, but he did not have enough courage to admit it and until he was caught red-handed.

  It's not a complex case. There are two main reasons for Zhou's crime: poverty and solitary personality. He wanted to change the condition of poverty but his solitary personality failed him to earn money in a right way. His situation deserved our sympathy. However, as a college student knowing the laws, he did the crime again and again. What's more, we sometimes hear cases that some student from some famous college committed crimes even in a extremely cruel way just because of some small reasons. That's a great pity that those highly-educated students to do such things.

  So, we need actions. The government should improve the legal system, implement standardized management, and strengthen both moral and legal education, thus creating a fair and legal society. As we individuals, we must. know the laws and abide by them. We should get rid of those negative factors to form a healthy and right psychology. With our devoted efforts, we can reduce crimes and live in a better society.