NCJ Number
234865
Date Published
1992
Length
494 pages
Annotation
This book explores criminal behavior through psychological analysis.
Abstract
This book is divided into 10 chapters. Chapter 1 presents a brief overview of the incidence of crime in the United States, suggests the sources of popular interest in the psychological explanation of criminal behavior, characterizes the effort to produce a differential psychology of criminal behavior as framework of personal construct psychology, and proposes four mutually interactive process elements of varying specific weights in any given situation as psychologically necessary antecedents to the emission of behavior that is formally criminal. Chapter 2 addresses the boundaries in the conceptual domain that limit psychological research on criminal behavior. Chapter 3 explores the real world domain of incident reports in the psychological study of criminal behavior. Chapter 4 reviews the process of the construction of conceptual models intended to render behavior intelligible. Chapter 5 reviews statistical data on the known parameters of criminal homicide as it is committed. Chapter 6 reviews psychological perspectives on criminal homicide from the particular vantage point of variables within the offender that can be regarded as part of the psychological baggage carried from one behavioral situation to the next. Chapter 7 focuses on extra-psychic variable in criminal homicide, with special emphasis on paradigms for learning through social imitation. Chapter 8 presents two extended case illustrations that portray the intersection of intra-person variables with stimulus determinants and environmental contingencies which yield situations in which an individual actor construes lethal violence as an acceptable, or even desirable, behavior. Chapter 9 examines larceny, the most frequently committed and one of the least frequently studied of the felony crimes, from both statistical and psychological perspectives. Chapter 10 summarizes the process psychology paradigm for criminal behavior, offers some refinements thereof, and discusses its application through correctional rehabilitation and through alternate preventive regimens. Glossary, references, and index