ABSTRACT
Psychological explanations of offending behaviour direct our attention to the mind of the individual and it is here that we encounter notions of the ‘criminal mind’ or ‘personality’. For purist advocates of the psychological variant of the predestined actor model – or psychological positivists – there are patterns of reasoning and behaviour that are specific to offenders and these remain constant regardless of their different social experiences. There are three broad categories of psychological theories of crimes and while the first two groupings, psychodynamic and behavioural learning theories, have firm roots in the predestined actor tradition, the third group, cognitive learning theories, reject much of the positivist tradition and, in their incorporation of notions of creative thinking and, thus, choice are, in many ways, more akin to the rational actor model of criminal behaviour. Each tradition, nevertheless, proposes that the personality is developed during the early formative childhood years of the individual.
