Criminal Personality

• Eysenck's criminal personality theory states that criminality is the result of a particular personality type. He said our personality consists of three personality dimensions: extroversion (sociability), neuroticism (emotion) and psychoticism (rebelliousness).
• He found that criminals tend to be both strongly extroverted and neurotic.
• Through experience, we learn to seek pleasure or rewards and avoid punishment. This is a process called conditioning.
• Extroverts have a nervous system that requires a high level of stimulation from their environment, so they are constantly seeking excitement. This leads to impulsive, rule-breaking behaviour.
• Neurotics are harder to condition because their high anxiety levels mean they find it hard to learn from their mistakes.
• In later research, Eysenck added psychotics, who are cold, solitary and lacking empathy. This could overlap with psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia.
• A strength of Eysenck's theory is that it is useful in describing how some measurable tendencies can predict criminality.
• It is also useful as other studies show that most offenders are psychotic, neurotic and extroverted.
• A limitation of Eysenck's criminal personality theory is contradicting evidence from different studies. Farrington examined a range of studies, showing prisoners are neurotic and psychotic but not extraverted.
• The E scale may be measuring two separate things: impulsiveness and sociability. Offenders score highly on impulsiveness, but not sociability.
• Evidence on prisoners shows a correlation between personality type and criminality, but this doesn't prove that personality type causes criminality. It could be the other way round - someone being a criminal might cause neuroticism.
• Convicted offenders (on whom the theory is based) may not be typical of offenders as a whole. For example, less impulsive (low N) offenders may be more likely to avoid getting caught.
• Self report questionnaires may be inaccurate due to lying, or misunderstanding / misinterpreting the question
• Aversion therapy applies criminal personality theory to the treatment of sex offenders. Offenders are asked to think about an unacceptable sexual fantasy until they are aroused. A strongly aversive stimulus (one the individual would choose to avoid) is then administered, such as an electric shock or nausea inducing drug. The procedure is repeated until the thought is associated with the punishment, and eradicated.
• Aversion therapy is limited, as it is a short term solution that wears off over time.
• Aversion therapy is also controversial for being a breach of human rights, as it was used to 'cure' gay people before homosexuality was legalised.