Evaluate the claim "we can predict who will become a criminal"

The aim of this essay is to provide a clear view of different type of mistreatment, mentally or physically abuse, crime, stress and anti-social that will affect a child or an teenage future such as leading them to be a serial killer or sexual offender due to mentally disorder. Through research and study, there are a few methods and tools that are normally used to identify the possibility of a child or teenage to produce mentally disorder that will causes criminal behaviour in the future or having the intention of doing crimes, such as child risk assessment, child behaviour checklist (CBCL), child psychometric assessment or longitudinal study (Herrenkohl, Jung & Lee, 2017). In this study, longitudinal study is chosen to be the best option to identify a child behaviour over a certain period of time, longitudinal study has already begun in 1970s where they have taken approximately 450 children within the age of 18 months to 6 years old (Sousa, Herrenkohl & Moylan et al, 2011), the study has collected enough research and experiment compared to other models. This essay has also point out which of what is the reason that has affected the children or causes them to have such behaviour which can prevent them from doing crimes.

Pattern of criminals can be found through different type of study and research, but it could not determine how an individual does crime. According to Beune, Giebels & Taylor (2010), the reasons an individual became criminals is that most of them have been through physical and mentally abuse, been through social labelling or neglection from friends or family and they lack love & attention which cause them to have a damage in their mentality therefore, they committed the crime to satisfied themselves or to get attention from people. Criminals normally will have different type of pattern theory such as serial killer theory, sexual offender theory such as cognitive theory/evolutionary theory or a normal pattern theory for minor crime such as rioting, vandalism or indecent exposure. Before an individual has decided to commit a crime, they will normally look for a decision template such as looking for a suitable target, place or doing it individually or with partners and it led to regularise decision (Wortle & Mazerolle, 2008). According to Cusson (1983), crime committed can be triggered by their anger, desire, low self-esteem or even due to their parents-neglection.

A serial killer normally murders 2 to 3 or more people within a period of timeframe but that is not how criminals getting called of being a ‘serial killer’. A serial killer means that it involved murdering a few people and at the same time it must they must have psychological motive or sexual sadism, while most of the female serial killer normally involve love, financial gain or attention (Bohn, 2019). Under serial killer theory there are 4 type of serial killer and every type of serial killer have their own motive or satisfaction, the trill-seeker, mission oriental, visionary killer and power control seeker. It can also be classified as organizational and social skills, disorganized & social or organized and non-social. According to Wilkinson (2017), serial killer patterns can be seen when they were young such as being cruel to animal, having no empathy or sympathy to people. According to Tron(2018), there was an serial killer Edmund Kemper has an IQ of above 145 but he is an exception, normal serial killer only have an average of IQ 90. Serial killer and occupation are normally linked, they can act as different type of roles to commit the crime or work in a certain industry where it helps them to do crime especially government sector such as army, politician or related to the state confidentiality to gain their own connection or law enforcement officials overlook so that he able to avoid the punishment or reduce sentences. According to the psychodynamic theory, crimes occur when an individual has a weak ego, in serial killer criminals they have been manifesting their own negative feeling when they were younger, and it turn them to be a brutal murder when they were older. Many serial killers are survivors of early childhood trauma either on physical or sexually abuse, neglection from parents or labelling from society (Holmes, Burger & Holmes, 1988).

This theory means that the society label an individual in a negativity way such as a criminals or victim of an incident and they chose to accept it as their identity and to act as them in the future (Kenney, 2017), whether good or bad people always care about how the reaction of the society and has always follow what the society want from them and live for others instead of themselves. When the society devalued an individual it may cause a permanent harm to the target mentality and it can affect their lives such as having deviant behaviour (Willis, 2017), deviant behaviour is an action or behaviour that the society or law could not accept due to violating of formal and informal cultural norms, it can result an individual violate formal enacted rules that involve violating law that is recognise in the state or informal social norms such as doing things in public which causes society dislike or getting the disapproval of a person because they think that this action do not fit in the require norms that are given by the society (Phelan, 2005).

Longitudinal theory is an expensive research, but the result can be very valuable, it is an observational test that mainly for periodic type that can identify younger age group children to see whether they have the intention or behaviour that will cause them to be a criminal in the future. If children are known to have the intention, it is advised that parent should gave more attention and proper teaching to them of the consequences of doing crime will be efficient. This theory allows researchers to look at the changes and compare over a certain period of time, it is best to use for lifespan studies or developmental issues. In a research of self-reported criminals, longitudinal theory is used to identify when is the deviant behaviour started, result has shown that it was mostly started during their childhood period and mostly the cause of it is from their parents such as impatience, abusive and lack of proper education parents that allow them to develop different type of emotion such as negativity, low self-esteem and impatience that it makes them to have anti-social behavior and it led them to commit the crime in order to seek for attention from their closes one (Hyunzee, Herrenkohl, Klika & Skinner, (2015). In Napper, Kenney and LaBrie (2014) research, longitudinal theories is used to see how affected another individual is compare to another person opinion, it is a very good research as it shown that how someone got hook up due to the friends has encourage them to do it and it led to unplanned pregnancies or sexually transmitted infections (STIs), is a research that allow to spread awareness and not following what another person opinions is to reduce your own potential harms.

It means that someone has convicted sex crime or sexual assault, sex offenses involving computers such as distributing child sexual videos is also punishable. Offender do not care what their “partner” is experiencing and they normally will abuse to satisfied themselves, Sexual offender have already planned and scouted the place and time to encounter their target, offender are normally well prepared and does not afraid of what the consequences. In sexual offender there are multiple types of theories that can or couldn’t explain of why they have committed sexual offense such as evolutionary theories, cognitive or finklehor’s precondition theories (Ward, 2000). Cognitive theories are a better understanding of what sexual offenders is thinking as it is causes by cognitive distortion or thinking errors that causes them to have such an deviant behaviour, it is a good theories to record deviant sexual acts as offender normally will tried to diminish their feeling of guilt after remembering their actions. Another cognitive distortion very common among sex offender is that they have the mindset thinking that what they are doing is currently is more important then the consequences they will be having afterwards and offender will normally find excuses for themselves such as thinking that their victim deserved it. (Ciardha &, Ward, 2012).

It can be a yes or a no base on the topic given as it can say that it can rule out criminal pattern by using theories and make the circle smaller in order to catch them, but we cannot totally base on all these theories to determine who is a criminal as study found that adults might not follow a predetermine criminal path due to some circumstances or factors (Francis, Soothill, Fligelstone, 2004). Criminals always happen during childhood and mostly caused by their parents. If parents could take more notice and giving more attention to the children’s the world will have lesser criminals. Theories studies can also give awareness to the public or government to let them know that criminal’s behaviour always come from relevant people and it can advise people by making more public awareness such as having school talk or by helping the poorer area to have a better education.

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