Psychopathology of Crime: Criminal Behavior as a Clinical Disorder

• NCJ Number: 149484
• Author(s): A Raine
• Date Published: 1993
• Length: 396 pages
• Sale Source: Academic Press, Inc
• Publication Type: Best Practice/State-of-the-Art Review
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This book reviews the literature on the biological bases of criminal behavior and explores the question of whether serious, recidivistic criminal behavior is a psychological disorder.

Abstract

The discussion notes that this issue differs from the question of whether mental disorders are often found in offender groups. The issue of whether criminal behavior, in and of itself, constitutes a disorder, is addressed by reviewing definitions of disorder; assessing the extent to which criminal behavior fulfills such definitions; and using a construct validity approach to establish a network of familial, extrafamilial, cognitive, neuropsychological, psychophysiological, brain imaging, biochemical, and genetic predispositions are established for crime. The analysis concludes that initial evidence exists to view crime as a disorder; that 13 empirical, conceptual, and societal arguments can be made against this conclusion; and that none of these arguments, in themselves, can convincingly reject the notion of crime as a disorder, although some raise substantive issues that also face disorders other than crime. Research recommendations, figures, tables, author and subject indexes, and over 600 references (Publisher summary modified)