Crime is an offense that is prosecuted by nation and punishable by law. World- wide gradual increase in crime rate and severity poses a firm threat to the existing society. While condemning each and every aspect of crime, we also need to realise the facts behind that. Time has come to ask “why” “when” and “how” of a crime.
An offender is called criminal only when his or her action comes into knowledge. Albeit, in the society, there are many people roaming around with a dormant criminal mind, but never can execute the crime because of lack of opportunity or short of enough confidence. If they get a chance, they would try to do it. In fact, sometimes they do small offensive actions that are not vividly regarded as crime. But whatever be the extent, the act of offense is a result of an unhealthy mind and can make over a criminal.
According to crime pattern theory, a crime is never a momentary act. It’s either planned, or opportunistic. If so, there should be a preparatory phase and this is where we should focus.
Research from Neurobiology and Psychology claim a deep rooted neuro-psychological dysbalance in creating a criminal mind. There happens a cluster of personality disorders, that are much prone to commit crime, antisocial/ dissocial personality disorder is the most important among them. If we analyse the characteristics of the disorder, we may understand why a person does the offense. A person having such disorder generally exhibit risky behaviour, lack of empathy, tendency to break rule, not being guilty following offensive action and sometimes show intense aggression. From this series of behavioural mal adaptations, it is quiet imperative that such individuals are impulsive and not having clear sense of should-should’t .
In brain, there’s an interconnected network that is responsible for our emotional control, impulsive action and so our reaction to rewards. When we get certain reward after doing something, we feel happy and more motivated to do that. If this reward response is uncontrolled, impulsivity, improper judgement, lack of self control may occur resulting into number of behavioral problems like addiction, antisocial personality, aggression, too much dependency and many more. This reward circuitry is found altered in them. But, this is just an example of several miss orientations existing within such brains. Moreover, the developmental phase of a child has some critical turning points that cater his or her self identity. If this psychosocial development is affected, it can also lead to a bulk of mental health issues. On top of everything, familial genetic risk factors, nutrition deficiency, socio-economic factors and few other things can add up to cause mental illness. But again, none of the illness happens suddenly, especially disorders of personality and tendency to commit crime. Thus awareness and rehabilitation are must to combat such illness that threatens individuals and society.
While we stand against any act of crime, we should take initiative to identify it, so that chances of letting it happen gets lower. As prevention is better that cure, resisting and reading a criminal mind in anticipation of the offense is one of the possible ways to reduce crime rate and save the society.
Be Aware, Stay Healthy, Stay Safe
