Criminal Personality in Criminological Science: A Comprehensive Criminological-Legal, Socio-Psychological and Medical-Psychiatric Approach to the Study

The analysis of criminological literature shows that, on the one hand, the literal translation of the term “criminology” means “the science of crime”, but, on the other hand, the subject of criminology both as a science and as an academic discipline includes a number of elements that make it possible to form a relatively objective picture of crime as a negative, historically changeable, mass socio-legal phenomenon, about its structure, dynamics, trends, as well as about the personality of those who are those who have committed the crime are conventionally referred to for the sake of brevity for scientific and educational purposes as the personality of the criminal. It is the personality of the criminal that is the key link in the mechanism of committing a crime. At the same time, individual criminal behavior is negatively affected not only by unfavorable environmental conditions in a broad sense, but also by the peculiarities of the psychophysiological properties of the individual, including the mental state.

In the course of this study, the emphasis was placed on the content analysis of the scientific literature on the problems of criminological study of the personality of the criminal. In addition, the method of comparative legal analysis of individual norms of the current Russian criminal legislation was used. The method of examining documents, in particular those of a medical nature, in the field of mental disorders and behavioural disorders, was also used.

The results of the study indicate that in the opinion of prominent Russian scientists, known not only in the former USSR and modern Russia, but also in many distant foreign countries, from among the specialists in the field of such legal sciences of the anti-criminal cycle as criminal law, criminology and penal law, individual criminal behavior is influenced not only by social factors of external reality. Often, the psychophysiological characteristics of the offender’s personality act as the causes of crimes or the conditions conducive to their commission.

A person»s behavior is determined not exclusively by surrounding circumstances or, on the contrary, only by internal properties, but is the result of the interaction of the external environment and the peculiarities of the psychophysiological properties of the personality. From the point of view of criminology, it is important to involve specialists in the field of clinical psychology, neurology, and psychiatry in the study of the personality of a criminal within the framework of scientific research for a professionally competent, in-depth analysis of the features of the psychophysiological properties of the person in order to find out the reasons for the choice of a criminal variant of behavior.