There isn’t a single factor that creates a criminal. If that were the case, there would be a solution towards stopping criminal behavior and how to prevent it. It takes a biological, social, and psychological approach, to understand how a person becomes a criminal.
Criminal behavior in adolescence is one of the most important precursor of offending behavior in adulthood. Early research has suggested that more than half of adolescent offenders will continue offending beyond their teens. (Watt et al., 2004). The young offenders who continue their criminal behavior into adulthood, are at a higher risk for serious and chronic offending behavior. Multiple factors have been identified as predictors of offending behavior among adolescents, including individual and contextual factors, such as family, school, and peers.
Theories of criminal behavior from a social psychological perspective considers the influence of both dispositional and situational factors. (Gruman et al., 2016). Bandura’s social learning theory could be applied to understand the onset and making of a criminal. It believes the criminal activity represents learned behavior that develop through an individual’s interactions and experiences, within their social environment.
The social learning theory stresses the importance of the solidity of rewards and costs for antisocial behavior, versus the rewards and costs for prosocial behavior. Offending behavior is more likely among individuals who recognize greater rewards for delinquency, than individuals who see greater rewards for prosocial activities.
Despite an individual engaging in criminal behavior in a situation, it is still partially determined by discriminative stimuli in the situation. Here, stimuli suggesting that antisocial activity is likely to bring rewards, such as the presence of antisocial peers or an easy target. (Watt et al., 2004). Stimuli indicating that antisocial behavior is likely to produce greater costs, such as the presence of a prosocial partner, would predict engagement in non-offending behavior. There are several studies that support the connection between perceived rewards and offending behavior. Anticipated positive outcomes of violent behavior includes the reduction of aversive arousal, reputation enhancement, and sexual arousal have related to serious violent behavior.
The social learning theory is based on antisocial peers and antisocial attitudes, being the main precursor towards criminal behavior among young offenders. A change in one of the two predict future offending behavior.
Works Cited
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2016). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.
Watt, B., Howells, K., & Delfabbro, P. (2004). Juvenile Recidivism: Criminal Propensity, Social Control and Social Learning Theories. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 11(1), 141–153. https://doi.org/10.1375/pplt.2004.11.1.141