In this chapter, we focus on theories that are all about the individual person and their own behavior, whereas Chapter 4 focuses on society’s effect on people’s behavior. In this chapter, we considered theories of intelligence and personality. Whatever is believed to be the source of criminal behavior guides policies and practices. For this reason, it is important to know the theory behind the decisions. Some of the theories in this chapter were deterministic, meaning people have a certain intelligence or personality and there is not much to be done about that. However, other theories suggested different interventions like conditioning and therapy could help change someone’s behavior. As we discussed in Chapter 1, the point of criminology is to understand why crime happens with the end goal of being able to stop it. Think about how the theories in these chapters affect how people may go about trying to stop crime.

5.6.4 Summary

The average IQ test score is 100. Someone below 85 was considered undesirable and problematic. This label did lead to someone being incarcerated or institutionalized, or even murdered. Goddard advocated colonizing and sterilizing people he deemed to be “mental defectives.” He claimed that at least half of criminals are mentally defective. Murchison maintained that intelligence was not a factor in the causation of crime, but Erickson discovered a link between IQ and crime and claimed some crimes require a greater IQ than others. Several scholars promoted research that made racist claims about IQ differences between African Americans and European Americans. Hirschi and Hindelang found within social classes and racial groups, persons with low IQ were more likely to be delinquent. Hernstein and Murray argued that it was cognitive disability rather than economic or social disadvantage that created crime.

Walters formulated lifestyle theory that centers on the belief that criminal behavior is a general criminal pattern of life. Eysenck created criminal personality theory to explain criminality. Bandura defined observational learning as the process by which “people convert future consequences into motivations for behavior.” Pavlov conducted research that resulted in his theory on classical conditioning and Skinner looked at both good and bad stimuli and also good and bad reinforcements in terms of how they affected behavior. Maslow believed that humans’ needs are mentally prioritized in order of importance. Freud believed the unconscious was able to alter one’s conscious values and emotions without the individual being aware of this control. Koch viewed people who had emotional and moral aberrations as suffering from psychopathic inferiority. Kraepelin created categories of psychopathic personality and Schneider argued there are many types of abnormal personalities that are not harmful. The important distinction is that psychopathic personalities suffer from their abnormal personality and cause suffering to others because of it. Asch conducted a study on the willingness of adults to conform to authority. Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment showed how quickly individuals would adapt to a given role to commit evil acts.

5.6.5 Resources

• The American Bar Association provides various resources, such as publications including periodicals and the ABA Journal. http://www.americanbar.org/aba.html
• The National Center for State Courts provides information on mental-health courts. https://www.ncsc.org/Topics/Alternative-Dockets/Problem-Solving-Courts/Mental-Health-Courts/Resource-Guide.aspx
• PsychLAW is the American Psychological Association website for psychology and law. It links to the APA journal Psychology, Public Policy and Law and to APA amicus briefs. http://www.apa.org/topics/law/index.aspx