research paper

Jason Sylvester Research paper

Criminal Thinking.

What is it that causes a person to become a criminal? Central Florida Psychological consultants, Inc believe that there are eight criminal thinking patterns. Based on their research they find that offenders and ex-inmates do not think as a law abiding citizen would. Rather they engage in criminal thinking patterns. These patterns or thinking errors are the cornerstone to the foundation that offenders build upon.

The eight criminal thinking patterns are as follows. The first is mollification which means that lifestyle criminals seek to play down the seriousness of past criminal conduct or conflicts by blaming problems on external circumstances, making excuses for their behavior, pointing out unfairness in the world, or de-valuing their victims. The second criminal thinking pattern is called the “cutoff”. With practice, the lifestyle criminal eliminates normal feelings which deter the criminal action through a simple phrase [“forget-it”]. In some cases the offender will abuse drugs or alcohol to cutoff fear, anxiety, guilt, or other common deterrents to criminal activity. The third thinking pattern is entitlement. The lifestyle criminal believes that he is entitled to violate the laws of society and the rights of others by way of an expressed attitude of ownership, privilege, or by labeling wants and needs. The fourth is power orientation. Choosing power and control over self discipline and internal control, lifestyle criminals attempt to exert power and control over others. Consequently they feel weak and helpless when not in control of a situation, also known as [zero state] which consists of these beliefs, you are nothing, everyone else also believes you are worthless, your worthlessness will last forever and can never be changed. They attempt to alleviate this feeling by a style which criminals adopt called the power thrust which results in one of three things, manipulating, intimidating, or physically assaulting others. The fifth criminal thinking pattern is sentimentality like most people, the lifestyle criminal have an interest in being viewed as a nice guy. However this creates a serious dilemma, given the level of interpersonally intrusive activity they have engaged in. they may perform various good deeds with the intent of cultivating a heck of a guy or robin-hood image. Number six is super optimism experience has taught the lifestyle criminals that they get away with most of their crimes. This leads to a growing sense of overconfidence in which they believe they are invulnerable, and unbeatable. Ironically, this belief leads to their eventual downfall. Seven is cognitive indolence commonly known as mental laziness. As lazy in thought as in behavior, lifestyle criminals take short cuts through life which inevitably lead to failure, low self evaluation, and poor critical reasoning skills. The last is discontinuity. Lifestyle criminals have difficulty maintaining focus over time because of being easily influenced by events and situations occurring around them. As a result they have difficulty following through on initially good intentions. In addition to these thinking errors, specific criminal acts are affected by motives such as fear, anger/rebellion, excitement/pleasure, and greed/laziness. These motivations sometimes combine with criminal thinking patterns to produce a variety of maladaptive behaviors.