Criminal psychology is a field of legal psychology that studies the system of internal mechanisms for committing crimes by people, the mental world of people, as well as the problem of the structure, education, functioning and breakup of criminal groups.
Poznyshev S.V. is the founder of this discipline. According to his theory, criminal psychology performs the following tasks:
- studies such properties and conditions of a person that are capable of provoking his criminal behavior;
- considers not a complex of separate internal processes, but an integral personality in its manifestations, which can be attributed to the field of legal psychology;
- identifies ways to deal with offenders.
In domestic criminal psychology studies, the following are studied:
- the inner world of prisoners;
- living conditions of the criminal world;
- principles for interpreting witness statements (reasons for errors in them);
- methodology and theory of forensic psychological examination;
- psychology of deviant behavior (criminal, addictive, suicidal and other types).
Legal psychology offers original methods for detecting traces of crime. Over the years of the existence of science, a large number of experiments have been carried out.
Criminal psychology has two areas of research.
Firstly, within the framework of the discipline, personal prerequisites and qualities were identified that, when interacting with a specific external situation, can provoke the occurrence of an offense situation. Criminal psychology establishes and substantiates the specific and characteristic features of a person, which become the cause and characteristic premises. We are talking about defects in legal awareness, culture, morality, emotions and so on. Moreover, within the framework of the discipline, the occurrence of a person’s immunity to criminal situations is studied in detail and recommendations for the prevention of crime are developed.
Secondly, the methods of legal psychology are also aimed at studying the psychology of the victim. Close attention is paid to the factors of formation of his personality and analysis of behavior.
In the framework of the discipline, the problems of forming the intent of the offender, as well as reckless crime (domestic and professional) are studied.
This science contains one of the most important sections - the criminal psychology of minors. She explores not only their antisocial behavior, but also reveals environmental factors and personality traits of the adolescent that push them to crime. It is from them that his individual response to any life failures will depend. This section also develops recommendations that are aimed at preventing juvenile and juvenile delinquency.
A special branch of criminal psychology is the forensic psychological examination, which is not lawful to solve legal problems. We are talking about the reliability of the testimony, the purpose and motives of the crime, the identification of the form of guilt, etc. The subject of the EIT is the diagnosis of mental non-pathological features on individual participants in the criminal case, which are significant in order to establish the truth.
Criminal psychology studies the socio-psychological mechanisms of group crime. We are talking about the reasons for the unification of offenders, the conditions that contribute to this, the social positions of its specific members, the hierarchy of interpersonal roles and group dynamics.
All areas of discipline are associated with the search for effective means and ways to prevent the growth of crime.