Criminal Behavior
Criminal behavior may result from different circumstances, mentalities, and backgrounds of the offenders. In the eyes of law, the offenders should always be liable for their actions. This personal liability of the offender cannot be overlooked owing to his or her backgrounds, course of action, and mental state until and unless there is
some solid psychological or medical reason. Nevertheless, scholars have attempted to find out the behavioral reasons behind criminal activities. In doing so, it is often believed that criminal activities may be caused by
the offender’s history of early life. Sometimes, childhood memories or adolescent lifestyle issues may also lead to criminal behavior (Siegel, 2015). They way of social thinking around criminality has led to several
attempts of finding out reasons behind the psychological mindset of an individual that might lead to crime.
According to van Hasselt and Hersen (1995), researchers like Loeber noted that there are at least three different pathways that may lead to antisocial outcomes. These pathways are primarily concerned with adolescent
mindset, although childhood issues have also been considered. First, an aggressive versatile path involves a large variety of conduct issues. These issues involve both aggressive and non-aggressive behaviors. However, the antisocial outcomes would involve violence and hyper-activity. This pathway may even begin in the preschool years leading to criminal tendencies during adolescence.
Second, a non-aggressive path may begin much later. Non-aggressive conduct issues are somehow more specific to actions like lying, theft, substance abuse, etc. This kind of actions might be done among delinquent
peers. Aggression and violence may take place in this pathway too, but action-oriented non-aggressive delinquency is the most common and consistent feature.
Third, there is the exclusive substance abuse path. This path is generally taken up during the beginning of “early to middle adolescence” (van Hasselt and Hersen, 1995, p. 357). Criminal psychology caused by substance abused may take violent turn and may also lead to more repetitive riminal actions. However, non-aggressive delinquent tendencies may play an indirect role since substance abuse may be caused in company of deviant
friends and criminal surroundings. In Advances in Clinical Child Psychology (2013), a category of exclusive substance abusers have also been suggested that would group those offenders who are not really instigated by some kind of life event or early childhood problems. However, this kind of individuals may also not indulge in too many criminal activities. Instead, these abusers are more occupied with heavy drinking habits or regular drug
abuse tendencies.
To conclude, pathways to antisocial outcomes are varied. The aforementioned three most important pathways may not always be used for understanding more complex criminal mindset and behaviors. Aggression as
well as non-aggression may feature initial criminal tendencies. …
