Evalutation

• It ignores individual differences – rather than emphasising uniqueness, he tries to place people in categories. It is wrong to lump together neurotic and extroverts (the most likely criminals) and assume they have similar reasons for turning to crime.
• It seems unlikely that criminals share a similar personality – if we accept his broad personality types, it I hard to accept that spontaneous criminals (robbing people in the street) has the same personality characteristics as a person who carefully plans their crime (fraud).
• Too deterministic – suggests that people are born with their personality type and therefore their chance of becoming a criminal is mainly driven by biology. This suggests that crime is largely out of the control of the individual which does not help the individual take responsibility for their actions.
• Critics say that the concept of psychoticism is not useful – some psychologists do not accept that the trait of psychoticism causes criminal behaviour but instead is the definition of criminal behaviour.
• There's not enough emphasis back on nature - critics say we should focus more on how we try to condition this personality type – what is the right kind of environment so that individuals do not turn to crime as much as they do.