Criminology: The Personality of the Offender

Effective crime prevention is only possible when attention is focused on the personality of the offender, as it is the individual who carries the causes of criminal acts. Therefore, the personality of the offender is the main and most important link in the entire mechanism of criminal behavior. The traits that give rise to such behavior should be the direct target of preventive measures. As a result, the issue of how a criminal personality is formed is one of the leading and, at the same time, most complex problems in criminology.

The formation of a criminal personality can be defined as the process by which an individual gradually develops and solidifies a relatively stable orientation toward violating criminal law norms. This process does not last a lifetime but occurs during the period necessary for the individual to develop as a person. The formation of personality is characterized by the active role of society, which serves as a unique supplier of information, norms, roles, and attitudes that are imprinted in consciousness and, to some extent, influence whether a person becomes a law-abiding citizen or a criminal.

The family, to a certain extent, models the individual’s relationship with society and fulfills the function of socialization, that is, adapting a person to life in society. It can be said that any intentional crime indicates that the offender’s family, if it did not contribute to the crime, at least did not provide sufficient resistance to it. Society generally expects families to have a positive influence on their members. When a family fails to adapt its members to social life, leading to their criminalization, or even encourages criminal intentions, this is called family desocialization.

According to research, more than a third of the population in Russia under the age of 45 has gone through a divorce at least once. In most cases, after a divorce, the child or children remain with the mother.

The personality of the offender is shaped not only by the microenvironment (family and other small social groups) but also by broader, macro-social phenomena and processes. In our country, there have long been objective factors that create a high level of anxiety in individuals: significant social stratification based on material well-being, the volume and quality of social services, social tension between people, the loss of traditional life values and ideological beliefs (especially among young people), the weakening of family, work, and other social ties and controls, and the growing number of people unable to find their place in modern production.

An individual rejected by their family almost always falls under the strong influence of an antisocial peer group, whose members typically commit crimes. Under the influence of such a group, attitudes and value orientations are formed, including ways of resolving life situations and problems. This is a crucial point, as the motives and goals of behavior are not always illegal; more often, it is the methods of achieving these goals that are unlawful.

According to leading criminologists worldwide, the core of any program to prevent juvenile delinquency should be ensuring the well-being of young people from early childhood. This refers to implementing the main provisions of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1959, which addresses early crime prevention, general prevention, and the prevention of recidivism among minors.

Criminological and family studies show that the relationship between family dynamics and crime cannot be characterized simply as positive or negative. On one hand, a significant portion of intentional crimes are committed not without negative influences accumulated in the parental family or marriage. On the other hand, the absence of a family also contributes to criminal behavior.

Almost twenty years ago, the leading journal “Social Forces” published a landmark 1994 study analyzing the well-being of children living in different family structures. Using nationwide data, researchers concluded that children living with their married biological parents had significant advantages in education and social-emotional development compared to children living with adoptive or cohabiting parents, divorced parents, or single mothers. Most of these advantages were linked to differences in family income, with a smaller portion attributed to differences in parenting.

“New research has shown that cohabiting biological parents are in many ways more similar to cohabiting adoptive parents than to married biological parents.” This means that both cohabiting biological and cohabiting adoptive parents “face economic disadvantages compared to married biological or adoptive parents.” Moreover, new studies have shown that, compared to married biological parents, “cohabiting biological parents may also provide lower-quality parenting” and “are more likely to separate.”

Juvenile delinquency is influenced not only by orphanhood but also by the disruption of the parental family, such as the absence of one parent. Among juvenile offenders, this is 2–4 times more common than among adolescents who have not committed offenses.

In recent years, about one in three teenagers who committed a crime in the former USSR grew up in a single-parent family.

It has become increasingly difficult for young people who have been released from prison, received suspended sentences, or had their sentences deferred to find employment. As a result, young people now make up the majority of the unemployed.