Chapter I. Criminal psychology as a science 1. Subject and tasks of criminal psychology

The subject of criminal psychologists. Crime and crime as a social phenomenon are studied by many sciences: criminology, criminal statistics, the sciences of criminal law and process, criminology, and of course, criminal psychology. In the same object, each of these sciences has its own subject of study, from which its tasks flow and the structure of this science is determined.
Criminal psychology, being an independent branch of a broader science - legal psychology, studies mental phenomena, facts, psychological mechanisms and psychological laws of the personality of a criminal, crimes committed by him and crime as a mass social phenomenon. In determining the subject of criminal psychology, it is important to consider four points.
First, criminal psychology, like any branch of psychological science, is not limited to the study and description of the human psyche, in this case the criminal, is not limited to the identification of psychological phenomena. It is intended to explain them, to reveal the laws and mechanisms of crime as an activity. Such an approach allows one to overcome the description, the statement of facts only, which replaces psychological research with sociological ones.
From the exact definition of the subject of science depends on the development and application of research methods. The specific psychological characteristics of the personality of the offender and criminal groups, as well as the psychological aspects of their criminal activities cannot be investigated by sociological methods, psychological methods of research are needed, adapted to the conditions in which crime and the criminal are studied by criminal psychology.
Secondly, the above definition of the subject is directed against attempts to narrow the problems of criminal psychology to the framework of only fixing the facts, and in fact the main task of any science that studies reality is to anticipate the development of certain events. It means that for criminal psychology it is important to predict the development of a criminal situation in the country based on the disclosure of the mechanisms of self-reproduction of crime.
Thirdly, in a criminal situation there are two sides: a criminal or a criminal group and a victim (victims). The development of events depends largely on the behavior of the victim of criminal encroachment. The study of the psychology of victims becomes an important problem of criminal psychology.
For criminal psychology, it is important to investigate the circumstances and factors that contributed to the formation of the identity of the criminal or the emergence of a criminal group, and that it would be important to undertake that the crime be warned. And here we come to the preventive aspect of criminal psychological research.
Fourth, the study of the psychology of criminal Communities is of paramount importance for criminal psychology (what communities are, how they arise, what are the internal psychological mechanisms of their existence, etc.).
In the end, the study of psychological phenomena, mechanisms and patterns in the field of crime is necessary in order to use psychological and other means recommended by criminal psychology to actively influence crime, narrowing the scope and forms of its manifestation.
Tasks of criminal psychology. Based on the definition of the subject, we can formulate the following main tasks of criminal psychology:
1) the study of the psychology of the personality of the offender, the characteristics of various types of criminals, the development of their classification;
2) the study of the psychology of crime as a special type of activity (motives, methods of commission, mechanisms of psychological defense and self-justification of a person who committed a socially dangerous act);
3) the study of the psychology of criminal communities (types of communities - randomly generated, organized criminal groups, criminal organizations; features of the psychological mechanisms of their existence, cohesion, activity, etc.) in them;
4) psychological study of crime as a mass social phenomenon (its main psychological characteristics, trends, social and psychological causes, etc.);
5) the study of the psychological mechanisms of reproduction of crime in society and the development of psychological methods of its prevention;
6) development of the psychological aspects of victimology (victimology is the study of victims of criminal encroachment) and the development on this basis of psychological measures to ensure personal and safe life activities.