- To hate crime, or the criminal!

By Rashi Mishra
The causes of crime are multiple, and no single theory can explain all the causes. These causes are biological, psychological, social and economic. Among the biological causes one can include insanity, physical disability, defective glandular and nervous systems. The social causes are social disorganisation, social competition, social mobility, conflict, defective social institutions and lack of education. The economic causes are wealth, unlimited desires, indoctrination, poor natural resources and inflation. But, above all, personality and the environment play a major role. Sigmund Freud’s psycho-analytical theory defines the human mind as a combination of three levels: the conscious, preconscious and unconscious, i.e. ego, superego and id. Criminality arises out of conflicts related to these basic drives. If the three are in relative harmony, it results in a well balanced personality.
Lombroso, an Italian physician and professor of Clinical Psychiatry and criminal anthropology, described as the Father of Criminology who put forward the Theory of Evolutionary Atavism, claimed that the criminal is of different physical type than the non-criminal. He could be identified easily if he had large ears, an asymmetrical face, extremely long arms, flattened nose, retreating forehead, tufted and crispy hair, insensibility to pain, eye defects and other physical abnormalities. He was badly criticised by many, but finally biogenic variables were revised by Hootan in 1939. The four conclusions he drew were that criminal behaviour was the direct result of inherited biological inferiority as shown by characteristics like sloping foreheads, thin lips, straight hair, body hair, small ears, long thin necks and sloping shoulders. Particular types of crime were caused by particular types of biological inferiority. Tall and thin men tended to be murderers and robbers, tall and heavy men tended to be cheats, short stature and thin men tended to be thieves and burglars, and short heavy men were prone to committing social crimes. Criminals were organically inferior and elimination of crime could be effected only by sterilisation of the physically and mentally unfit persons.
Psychology says that crime is a defect in the personality of the offender or in the inside of the person. Henry Goddard reported results on intelligence tests in 1919 and found that the main cause of crime was very low IQ, but Sutherland analyzed 350 reports and examined the relationships between the criminal and his IQ. He discovered that there was a difference in the mental age of criminals and non-criminals and hence concluded that low IQ was not a significant cause of criminality. Alfred Adler explained crime in terms of inferiority complex. Later, David Abrahamsen’s formula was introduced in 1952: C=T+S/R where C stands for crime, T for tendencies, S for situation and R for Resistance. Criminal behaviour would result if the individual has strong criminaltendencies and low resistance.William Healy, a psychiatrist, emphasised on personality defects and disorders or psychogenic traits as the cause of crime, which included ways of behaviour that are established in the infant or young child through emotional interaction within the family. But, some serious methodological errors were found in his study and, soon, Sigmund Freud’s psycho-analytical theory was used by others to analyse criminals on the basis of id, super-ego, and ego. According to them, behaviour is largely the product of unconscious psychological–biological forces, criminality arose out of conflicts related to id, super ego and ego and to modify undesirable criminal behaviour, the person had to be guided towards insight into the unconscious roots of his responses so that he could develop control over such impulses. Crime has its own ground reality. Now, who will justify whether to hate the crime or the criminal…?
(Rashi Mishra is Assistant Professor, School of Communication, Doon University, Dehradun)