2. The psychology of the personality of the offender

The personality of a criminal is understood as a sane person who has committed a socially dangerous act prohibited by law, a criminal offense and has reached the age of criminal responsibility. Only a court can recognize a person as a criminal.
For the personality of the criminal in generalized form is characterized by the following features.
1. Defects of individual sense of justice as a result of its insufficient socialization: a) social and legal infantilism; b) legal ignorance; c) social and legal misinformation; d) legal nihilism (negativism); e) social and legal cynicism; f) social and legal lack of culture. On the basis of defects in legal awareness, all criminals can be classified into two large groups: 1) perpetrators of crimes because they do not know the laws, although ignorance of the laws does not exempt them from criminal liability; 2) to persons who knew the laws prohibiting the act, but committed them.
2. Pathology of the needful sphere of the personality or disharmony of the needs of the personality of the criminal, which is expressed in the following:
- in violation of the balance (balance) between the material and spiritual needs of the individual, as a result of which a person becomes a wearer or seeks enrichment by any means;
- the amoral, perverse nature of the satisfaction of many of them. Thus, a rapist is not judged for having sexual needs, but for seeking to satisfy them in a manner dangerous to the victim of sexual violence and prohibited by law;
- weakening of self-control over the satisfaction of many of them, as a result of which a person becomes a slave to his needs;
- a large proportion in the structure of the personality is occupied by quasi-needs (false needs), which are not necessary for personal development (alcoholism, drug addiction, chifirism, etc.).
3. Defects in personal settings. Many people commit crimes in connection with the presence in the personality structure of defects in personal attitudes. Here the following options are possible: /
- one has committed a crime because he does not have firm guidelines for law-abiding behavior;
- another has committed a crime, guided by the situational setting that has arisen in a situation favorable to the commission of a crime;
- the third has a solid criminal installation, so he himself creates a situation favorable for the commission of a crime.
4. Favorable for the commission of a crime and the formation of the personality of the perpetrator are defects in mental development, which are noted in almost 50% of convicts in various degrees of severity. These include primarily:
- neuropsychiatric diseases (psychopathy, oligre-phrenia, neurasthenia, borderline conditions), increased excitability, not reaching the insanity phase;
- hereditary diseases, especially those burdened with alcoholism, which affect 40% of mentally retarded children;
- psychophysical stress, conflict situations, changes in the chemical composition of the environment, the use of new types of energy, for example, atomic energy that has affected the environment, and as a result, lead to psychosomatic, allergic, toxic diseases and act as an additional criminogenic factor.
Defects of mental development lead to limited responsibility, weaken social control and social brakes of the individual over his behavior1.