Criminal Behavior Analysis

Criminal Behavior Analysis (Week Four)

CJA/323: Criminology

September 11, 2006

Criminal Behavior Analysis

Psychological theories of criminal behavior emphasize individual propensities and characteristics in explanations of criminality. Some theories are based on conditioned behavior, parental attachment and the psychoanalytic structure of the human personality. The following case study will consider how a subject's background, socioeconomic status, and family relationships relate to criminological theory and criminal behavior.

A male subject in his twenties, recently imprisoned for one year in a county jail in the state of New Jersey, found time to reflect on his life. He had finally run out of the numerous chances granted him by the judicial system. The subject, who we will call Robbie, had been in jail before, but never for longer than a couple of weeks. Now he was facing twelve months of incarceration.

Robbie's story begins in Staten Island, New York approximately twenty three years ago.

ROBBIE ROCHOW

ROBBIE KAMOTO

ROBBIE ROCHOW

He was born into an unhappy marriage between an emotionally unstable mother and a much older father. The mother already had two children from her first marriage and the father had two grown children from his first marriage. Robbie became somewhat of an afterthought and soon became a pawn in the deteriorating marriage. A bitter divorce ensued and a nasty custody battle began. Members of the mother's own family were summoned to court on behalf of the father because of the concerns regarding the mother's emotional problems. The mother ultimately prevailed, but a rift in her family was created and they were never the same again.

Robbie's father saw him periodically for the first few years, and then suddenly he was too busy or just no longer interested. Robbie's mother never let him forget how his father let him down and how he...