He/she sees people as entities pushed around by forces or who push one another around, in contrast to seeing people as driven to action by their thoughts, as expressing their feelings, or as internally directed. The criminal, or the crime-prone personality, sees events as external forces and connections, not according to his/her or its own or another's feelings, thoughts, or inner forces. Once the personality is so organized, he/she repeatedly commits crime, and he/she does so compulsively. Early in life, he/she learned to take what he/she wanted. If we scrutinize the life histories of people who commit and are convicted of real, or victimizing, crimes, especially the histories of recidivist criminals, we find that the criminal's personality has become organized around the principle of attacking, going against, and taking from people as his/her way of relating to them. This study also indicates that there are debates that try to relate or predict criminality by looking at the factors of an individual's personality. It usually begins in childhood or as teen and continues into their adult life.” Antisocial personality disorder is often referred to as psychopathy or sociopathy in popular culture.Ĭleckley (1976) suggests that psychopathy is distinctively different from criminality in that, “… the majority of psychopaths are not criminal, and the majority of criminals are not psychopaths …” They are grossly selfish, callous, irresponsible, impulsive, and unable to feel guilt or to learn from experience…”ĭSM-V defines antisocial personality as “antisocial personality disorder characterized by long-standing patterns of a disregard for other people's right.

They are incapable of loyalty to individuals, groups, or social values. “… Individuals, who are basically unsocialised and whose behavior patterns bring them into conflict with society. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Third Edition-Revised (DSM III-R) defines antisocial personality as follows: The term “psychopathy” is used to describe people who display what is considered to be antisocial behavior, and this term is frequently mixed up with terms such as sociopath or antisocial personality. Another area that may suggest an individual's personality is likely to cause criminal behavior is that of psychopathy. In the 1950s, it was thought that home life, upbringing, inconsistent affection, physical abuse, and inconsistent discipline could result in criminality. The born or made argument, known as the “nature versus nurture” debate, arises the question, whether criminality is due to genetic factors, and therefore unavoidable, or whether it is the product of social, situational, environmental surroundings, and other external factors. Are criminals born or made? This question has baffled psychologists, sociologists, and criminologists for many years, and efforts have been made to establish the nature of criminality.

Personality types criminals