Culprits Research Paper

Mental Illness has been prevalent all throughout our history from Isaac Newton to Abraham Lincoln to Sylvia Plath and so on. These illnesses can be as minor as a slight bipolar disorder or as severe as schizophrenia. In recent years, mental illnesses are becoming more prevalent in our criminal justice systems than anywhere else. Mental illness is becoming an association with crime and based on the information that has been found, this paper will attempt to further define the problem of mental illness within our criminal justice system and offer alternatives or insights as to how to possibly help with this problem.

Mental health and the criminal justice system have long been intertwined. Analyzing and understanding the links between these two subjects demands for a person to go in to depth in the fields of criminology, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry, because there are many points of view on whether or not a person’s criminal behavior is due to their mental health. Some believe that an unstable mental state of mind can highly influence a person’s decision of committing criminal actions. Others believe that mental health and crime are not related and that linking them together is a form of discrimination because it insinuates that those in our society that suffer from poor mental health are most likely to become a criminal due to their

As human beings we all see and hear about crimes from a day to day basis. We all question why we have crime and what makes a person commit a crime.

No human being is born with an innate desire to commit crime; growing up in an impoverished community with subpar education and little opportunity

Most criminals are rational decision makers. If the criminals are motivated by social forces, they are still making the rational decision to commit the crime; they considered the personal and situational factors before the crime. Their personal factor would be why they are doing this; their situational factors is where. As for the criminals that are motivated by uncontrollable urges, some of them developed those urges based on the onset of crime. Some emotional drives are irrational, such as violence in the heat of the moment; some psychological drives are irrational such as a mania (e.g. kleptomania, pyromania).

It is believed to be said that people commit crimes because of various reasons and aspects in their life. The community offers their citizens a secure and safe residence to live in. However, some argue that particular individuals are born with specific traits that determine how they react in a negative condition. Individuals make decisions in life that can lead them down the wrong path. An individual may choose to commit a crime, only looking at how it will benefit them. I also believe that people think before they commit any criminal activity. When an individual commits a crime, they act on their own free will. They’re aware of their consequences of their punishment. Also, people can commit crimes due to their society. Such conflicts arise

As suggested by Helfgott (2008) there are many behavioural theories that have been pondered over as to why people commit crime however no single theory gives us the solution.

The case of Andrea Yates shows that many factors may contribute to the commission of a crime. These range from psychological and biological factors such as mental disorders, cognitions, and neurological conditions to the sociological influences on a person’s life. Yates’s crime was unusual, the result of a perfect storm of mental, medical, and sociological stresses. But her case nonetheless illustrates that the extraordinarily complex nature of human behavior continually challenges the efforts of criminal justice experts to understand the causes of crime.

“Use a picture. It is worth a thousand words”- by Arthur Brisbane. The photographs in this essay represent the visualization of the perpetrators in three types of exhibits. These exhibits are; the survivor exhibit at Ravensbrück, the female SS guard exhibit at Ravensbrück and the House of the Wannsee Conference. Through the different exhibits, the story of the perpetrators emerges. In the survivor exhibit pictures, the story begins with the path to Ravensbrück to the administrative building. This exhibit highlights the story of the atrocities done by the perpetrators, is what this essay is portraying. The female SS guard story starts the same way, but stops at the guard houses. This story illustrates the making of an SS guard and what punishments these perpetrators went through after the Holocaust. The last exhibit, the House of the Wannsee Conference, tells the story of the administrative perpetrators. It highlights the striking difference of where high ranking officials spent time and their involvement in the decisions of the Holocaust. The exhibits in the essay add to the public memory of the perpetrators and offers the beginning of a holistic account of the Holocaust. Also, it allows individuals to

surrounds the offender’s state of mind - whether they must be ‘mad’ to commit a crime or simply

Many people look at crime as a hobby or a job to replace a regular everyday job to keep them busy. Hanging out with the wrong crowd will most likely increase your chances to commit a crime. People usually follow up people they are close to like family or friends. Growing up poor or going broke could push a person to commit a crime they never thought they would do. Some people take crime for the easy way out.

According to www.merriam-webster.com the term “crime” is defined as: “an illegal act for which someone can be punished by the government”. Some individuals in our society commit some type of crime every day, but why? In this assignment I will try to compile an overall theory as to why individuals commit crimes. While doing my research I came across 10 reasons/factors that can possibly explain why individuals commit crimes. These reasons include: The Prison System, drugs, depression and other social and mental disorders, family conditions, regionalism, T.V. violence, racism, politics, poverty, and overpopulation.

Other criminal acts are due to how much will power and individual has to obey the law which is known as the Social control theory. Social theorists claim that a person’s actions and feelings of strong emotions are influenced by internal and external forces. People who do not have well valued morals and lack self control are more likely to commit a crime. Individuals that are poor, do not have a good job, and or do not have a close and respectable support system of friends and family, do not have much to lose. Everyone needs to obtain some sort of social tie or bond in their life otherwise the person has no boundaries for themselves. Travis Hirschi states, “Lawbreaking is often the most immediate source of gratification or conflict resolution, and no special motivation is required to explain such behavior” (Hirschi, 1969). If a person has nothing else going

The first question I want to focus on is “are criminals any different than us?” According to a study done by Sudhinta Sinha, involving 37 male convicted criminals were observed. The crimes committed by the criminals included: murder, rape, theft, kidnapping, and forgery with 37 non-criminal citizens (Sinha, 2010). During the case study, the men were given The 16 Personality Factor Test which has an exceptionally high reliability and validity for data (OpenStax, 2016). At the end of the study, Sinha concluded that the criminal men were indeed different than the general population of citizens. The criminals tended to be more careless, under the average intelligence level, and less emotionally stable compared to non-criminal citizens. Using Sinha’s data from the case study, it is shown that criminals are indeed different from us.

What makes a criminal a criminal? Can anyone become a criminal? Answering and understanding these questions is the core work of criminologists as most criminologists attempt to make sense of why people do certain things (Garland, Sparks 2000). This essay will consider the notion that any person could become a criminal and in so doing consider the initial question. This essay will outline a range of theories that attempt to describe human behavior in relation to criminal behavior given the complexities of behaviour. Several theories will be considered as no single theory of behavior can account fully for the complexities and range in criminal behaviour. The theories range from social-control, to classical, to biological, to personality