Psychological Perspectives Of Criminology

There are many different ways of approaching criminology. A couple of the main perspectives include sociological, psychological, and theological theories. First lets look at the psychological perspective. The psychological perspective looks at something that not many other perspectives do, it looks at both the offender and victim as individuals. It studies the underlying processes of human thinking and behavior in order to understand (and in turn deter) crime. One example of this is Jean Piaget’s concept of schemas. Piaget stated that schemas are molded ways of thinking and perceiving the world around us. Basically “schemas” can be compared to wearing goggles that distort your view of the world (either positively or negatively). With this being …show more content…
This perspective looks at society as a whole, as well as the influences it can have on individuals. This has become one of the main ways of looking at crime. This perspective definitely has some great benefits. The main one being that if there are large scale factors in society at play in the formation of criminals, eliminating those problems could lead to drastic changes crime rates. This is pretty different than the way the psychological theory views criminology. Sociological theories focus on demographics, “hot spots,” cultural dynamics, socioeconomic effects, labeling theories, etc. However, this perspective can be problematic as well. When we start to look at people as “groups” or “types” we begin to lose track of those people as individuals. Even though we can find similarities between people, no two people are exactly the same. So bunching these people together completely overlooks the individual characteristics that could be contributing to their criminality. This is where the psychological perspective shines. The third viewpoint is the theological perspective. To me, the theological perspective is one of, if not the, most effective ways of deterring …show more content…
However, many of the modern theories state that people who commit crime fail to have a grasp of their internal belief system. They don’t have an anchor to keep them steady in life, so they turn to criminality as a source of solidity and acceptance. Scholars have often stated that a true, unwavering relationship with god gives people the support that they need to stay away from a life of crime. Some of the biggest success stories in the turnaround of convicted felons have come from criminals who’ve found god. In my opinion, this is the best perspective for the deterrence of crime. The problem with this theory however, is that you can’t force someone to believe something. Sure you can give them the information, but at the end of the day if they don’t accept it, it will be fairly useless. If I had to sum this up, I would conclude that the best way of going about the deterrence of crime would be to take methods from each one of these perspectives, seeing that every one of them have some brilliant