Personality of the offender - a set of socio-psychological characteristics and qualities, which are the causes and conditions for committing crimes. Criminal’s personality is different from the personality of law-abiding person by public danger, it is characterized by criminal needs and motivation, emotional and volitional deformation and negative social interests. The problem of offender’s personality is one of the central problems for sciences, which are connected with criminology. Criminology examines the socio-demographic and moral-psychological characteristics of offender. In addition, crucial for this topic and for criminology as a whole is a question of what the nature of the criminal behavior of man is: the biological or social. The individual characteristics of offender (primarily age and mental state that defines sanity) are both features of the perpetrator, without establishing of which the person can not be considered as criminally responsible. In addition, the characteristics of the offender’s personality should be assessed by the court in criminal sentencing. However, it is noted that the contents of "personality of a criminal" concept is much broader, it is not exhausted by the properties, specific to criminal law. The identity of the criminal is subject to comprehensive examination and consideration by experts of various disciplines (criminology, sociology, psychology, psychiatry, and so on).
Even before the beginning of the systematic study of crime and criminality by lawyers and sociologists, there were theories explaining criminal behavior; basically they had religious character. There were ideas, according to which the image and the meaning of human existence is determined by divine destiny before his birth. Thus, the existence of criminal personalities is associated with the fact that for them this way was predetermined by God, and this is the natural order of things. There was also the model of "temptation," which was based on the idea of devil and the divine powers of good confrontation. The devil tempts a person "offering" him to commit sinful (including criminal) act; the forces of good reward for the observance of the "rules", they provide spiritual help in trouble, helping him to resist demonic temptation. The individual always retains freedom of choice between good and evil, he can both resist the temptation and successfully confront it. More deterministic is the model of "obsession," which in this respect can be seen as a prerequisite of positivist criminological theories. Over the mind and body of possessed person an evil spirit took control, forcing him to commit improper actions. In order to return the person back to the normal human existence, it was necessary to carry out the rite of exorcism, the expulsion of the unclean spirit out of the body. Man, possessed by evil force, was admitted as unable to bear the responsibility for committed in such state actions. In order to justify the use by secular power of punishment for offenses, it was assumed that evil spirits can not possess anyone, but only those who lead a sinful lifestyle or has not manifested. vigilance The penalty, thus, was imposed not for the actions committed, but for the fact that people "allowed" a hostile force to posses him. Gradual weakening of religious influence on public life, the formation of a scientific outlook led to the fact that the religious views on crime during the Enlightenment were rejected. There have been initiated attempts for rational explanation of the origin of negative social phenomena. (Burke 1-5)
Physiognomy and phrenology became the predecessors of criminal anthropology, a doctrine which is often associated with the works of the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso and his disciples. Lombroso believed that criminals were characterized by anomalies of the internal and external anatomy, specific to primitive people and apes. He is the author of the idea of "a born criminal." Whether a person will become a criminal or not - depends on innate predisposition, each type of crime (murder, rape, theft) is characterized by its abnormalities of physiology, psychology and anatomical structure. He distinguished the following main features inherent in a born criminals: fat bottom and thin upper lip; pronounced incisors and in general abnormal lips; small chin, thin neck; sloping shoulders with broad chest; long arms, thin fingers; tattoos on the body; wrinkles on the forehead and face; large nostrils or lumpy face; large, protruding ears; the protrusions on the skull, especially in the "center of destruction" over the left ear, on the back of the head and around the ears; high cheekbones; lush eyebrows and large eye sockets with deep-set eyes; crooked or flat nose; outstanding forward jaw; the unusually small or large growth; the small head and a large face; low and sloping forehead; the lack of precise hairline. Lombroso distinguished insane criminals and criminals of passion, he studied the influence of gender on crime. In "Woman, criminal and prostitute," he expressed the view that female criminals surpass the male criminals by cruelty. (Ellwood 716-723)
Attempts were also made to put criminal behavior on dependence of body type of the person, which, in turn, was associated with the work of the endocrine glands. There are three main somatic types:
endomorphic - a tendency to obesity, soft rounded body, short and slender limbs, thin bones, smooth skin; relaxed personality with a high level of comfort, loves luxury, an extrovert.
mesomorphic - the predominance of muscle, bone and musculoskeletal system, large trunk, broad chest, big hands and arms, thick; active, aggressive and unrestrained personality type.
ectomorphic - predominance of skin, slender body, thin bones, sloping shoulders, small face, sharp nose, thin hair; sensitive type with attention disorders and insomnia, skin problems and allergies.
Although each person to a certain extent is characterized by features of all three types mentioned, it was believed that in criminals, to the greatest extent, are marked the features of mesomorphic type. Among the measures, which should be undertaken, for prevention of crimes commission the proponents of this theory (German psychiatrist Ernst Kretschmer, American criminologists William Sheldon, Klaus Conrad and others) offered hormonal therapy, as well as placing potential criminals in special camps, where they will be taught to skills of socially - useful behavior. The development of social and natural sciences in the XX century, could not fail to affect the development of doctrines about the criminal personality. In particular, the development of genetics gave rise to a sufficiently large number of studies, in which the authors tried to justify the biological theory of the offender’s identity on the basis of the latest scientific methods. The possibility of genetically identical children birth - identical twins, provides a way to determine whether there is a relationship between the genetic features of a person and character of his behavior. It has been found that if one of these siblings commits a crime, and the second one with a high degree of probability will follow his example. These studies significantly reinforced the position of proponents of biological theories. However, their opponents point out that this explanation is not possible. It is assumed that genetically is defined not the propensity to commit illegal acts, but a certain type of reaction to the social factors, forming the personality. (Hussain et al. 741-748)
In psychological theories it is believed that the crime is a sign of mental illness or other psycho-pathological disorders. Usually to mental abnormalities refer mental disorders not excluding sanity: the various forms of psychopathy, alcoholism, drug addiction, some forms of dementia, the effects of organic lesions of the central nervous system, which reduce resistance to the effects of conflict situations; create obstacles to the development of socially useful traits, particularly for its adaptation to the environment; weaken the internal control mechanism and others. Abnormal personal characteristics, as a rule, have not innate but acquired character (although the formation, predisposition of some of them may be due to heredity); they play an important, but not decisive role in the formation of human personality and behavior. Nevertheless, psychological disorders play a significant role in the mechanism of violent crimes and hooliganism; while individuals with listed above mental and physiological disorders among criminals make up to 50%, psychopaths and other persons with similar disorders are more likely to commit such crimes as murder and infliction of heavy injuries and the oligophrenics and people with the consequences of traumatic brain injury - rape. The study of criminality and mental disorders connection in criminology is necessary in order to develop specific measures to prevent crimes of such persons and post- criminal effect on them for their correction. (Cassel et al.171-182)
Formation of modern social theories of criminal behavior refers to the beginning of the XX century. It was due to the fact that the tendencies of the dynamics of crime contradicted to both the mechanistic theories of social determinism (crime grew faster than the population), and class theories of conflict (by extent of smoothing of class contradictions the crime not only disappeared, but even has not decreased). It has been suggested that the economic situation of the working classes must be understood not only as a financial but also spiritual, moral and political position, however, even taking into account this, the class theories have not been able to explain the increase in crime and its qualitative changes. An attempt to explain these contradictions was undertaken by the French sociologist Emile Durkheim. He first formulated the concept of social anomie, which was later interpreted by other criminologists. Durkheim states that a necessary condition for successful human existence is sufficient satisfaction of his needs, which is determined by a balance between objectives, which he puts before himself and the degree of his success in achieving these goals. If the biological needs (in eating, sleeping, and so on) are limited by natural way, then for social needs (the desire for well-being, luxury, comfort) exist no internal limiting mechanisms, their limits can be established only by society. Under normal circumstances, a person feels the restrictions, imposed by society, and obeys to its collective authority, his requirements do not exceed certain socially acceptable level. However, when in a society are absent certain established limits of aspirations for individual members, as it happens during various social upheavals, both of negative and positive character, before coming of society in balance, none of its members knows exactly what kind of the needs will be excessive and which ones are not. Position, which a person takes in a society, is characterized by certain social roles, having specific content. Person, simultaneously, takes a lot of positions and performs a variety of roles, which imposes certain imprint on the personality: qualities, important for these roles, are developing and unnecessary ones are suppressed. If the basic executable social roles do not require the formation of qualities, associated with responsibility for committing acts, if they conflict with each other and do not correspond to the social orientation of the person, there may arise personal deformation, which may facilitate the commission of crimes.
Personal deformations in criminals often are associated with alcoholism, long-term systematic abuse of alcohol entails degradation of the individual. It is noted that offenders, suffering from addiction to alcohol, are less inclined to active criminal behavior, do not create the conditions of the criminal situation, but enjoy favorably created factors. Alcoholism entails the destruction of normal family and work relationships, which are replaced on relationship with informal groups of drinking companions, who are the breeding ground of household crime. To criminals are inherent not only social negative qualities. Quite often among criminals can be met people with such positive qualities as resourcefulness, initiative, individuality and leadership abilities. However, these qualities, overlapping anti-social value orientation and distorted moral foundations of behavior, can increase the public danger by a particular offender as a person, who is capable to occupy a leading position in a criminal group. When characterizing the social roles, inherent to criminals, one can indicate on their low prestige, lack of strong links with the labor and educational groups and, on the other hand, the presence of close relations with informal groups, which have negative social orientation, the absence of any long-term life plans, social claims exceeding capabilities of a particular person. Also, the position is put forward that the commission of crimes is one of the possible outcomes of conflict resolution, which occurs due to the fact that the same person enters into different social groups with different ideology and behavior (family, work colleagues, national and ethnic communities). Thus, person becomes a criminal as a result of training to unlawful behavior in social small groups (family, street, school, etc.). When the assessments, which are conducive to offense, take precedence over estimates which he does not favor, a person becomes a criminal. Learning of criminal behavior is carried out using the same mechanisms as learning any other type of behavior. (Rock 51- 62) It should be noted that searches for the factors, underlying the criminal behavior of the person, do not cease to this day. The above theories are only the tip of the iceberg, the main group of teachings about the nature of the criminal personality. The total number of theories are extremely large; in fact we can say that there are many criminological schools in the world, there are so many theories of criminal behavior.
Works Cited
Burke, Roger Hopkins. “An Introduction to Criminological Theory”. 2009, Willan Publishing. Print
Ellwood, Charles A. “Lombroso 's Theory of Crime.” 1912, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Print
Hussain, Safraz&Sarwar, Muhammad. “Biological Oriented Theories of Criminality: Explanation and Criticism”. 2005, Grace Publications. Print
Cassel, Elaine&Bernstein, Douglas A. “Criminal Behavior”. 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Print
Rock, Paul. “Social theories of crime”. 2002, Oxford University Press. Print
