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Nearly all theoretical approaches and therapies to criminal thinking and behavior have been reductionist, meaning that they focus on a part or a subsystem of a system or a supra-system. While these reductionist theories and therapies have provided, and continue to provide, valuable information and rehabilitation, they offer a limited view of criminality and rehabilitation as a consequence of reductionism. Using general systems theory (GST), this article presents an integrated and interdisciplinary theoretical approach to criminal thinking and behavior. This article posits that criminality can be better understood, prevented, and treated using GST., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This research, using data from the Community Criminal Courts where a majority of elderly offenders are tried and sentenced, investigates the socio-economic profile of elderly offenders and the factors influencing their criminal motivation in Singapore. It revisits conceptualizations of offending in older age which until now has received scant attention even in Asian societies where ties to conventional institutions are thought to be "protective." The majority of elderly offenders in this study were "revolving door prisoners" and were never in possession of any efficacious social capital that would have prevented them from committing a crime or enabled their re-entry process, a problem compounded by the study's findings that almost 70% of the sampled offenders had experienced mental health issues. This would have spelled adverse consequences for their desistance and, conversely, their recidivist behavior, a finding that was consistent with many other studies that had examined the association between psychosis and crime., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or official policy of the State Courts.

The current study examined the association between psychopathy, criminal behavior, and the role of verbal intelligence. One promising approach is to examine alternative links between psychopathic traits and criminality like moderation and mediation effects by considering the potential relevance of verbal intelligence as a possible moderating variable. We hypothesized that psychopathic traits linearly predict antisocial behavior (ASB) but that a conviction because of ASB is moderated by verbal intelligence. To test a path model of this hypothesis, N = 305 participants (42% women; n = 172 inmates of German correctional facilities) filled in questionnaires to assess psychopathic traits, ASB, criminal behavior, and verbal intelligence. The moderated mediation analysis revealed that high psychopathic traits go along with a higher number of ASB, whereas individuals with higher verbal intelligence were more likely to evade detection, thus being more successful in their antisocial acts. These results sheds further light on the construct of adaptive psychopathy, supporting the notion that also non-incarcerated psychopathic individuals act highly antisocial. Only separate factors like verbal intelligence might mitigate negative consequences. Further implications for the concept of successful psychopathy are discussed., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This paper investigates the underlying causes of children's involvement in criminal behavior, and the rehabilitation programs which seek to reintegrate them into society after their release. The data needed were gathered from children's case files and semi-structured interviews with professionals who work in a child education institution. The findings of the study, which include the demographic and socio-economic background of children who offend, the types of crimes they have committed, their causes, and the nature of the applied rehabilitation programs provided for the children who were serving their sentences in the education center are explained and discussed. It is found that these children are victims of social, cultural, economic, and political structures of the society. They are generally from migrants' families with middle and low incomes and live in gecekondu neighborhoods. 1 Poor living conditions, lack of parental affection, poverty, deprivation, neglect, abuse, addiction, the lack of preventive and protective institutions, the lack of NGOs which work with children, are, inter alia, among the causes of youth crime in Turkey. A lack of engagement or intervention by local authorities or municipalities to tackle the problem of youth crime in their regions is a further factor. The problems are aggravated by a trial and prosecution process that takes up to 2 years. When pending trial, children receive almost no training or rehabilitation in institutions, and this impairs their personal development. There is an urgent need to establish a monitoring system which can regularly monitor children who offend and provide support for at least several months after their release. This would help children to reintegrate into society on a more positive level., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This article draws upon the theories of entrepreneurial cognition, planned behavior, and criminal desistance to understand the role of entrepreneurship education in the behavioral and cognitive transformation of incarcerated individuals. Specifically, this article considers how participation in an entrepreneurship education program should influence entrepreneurial opportunity recognition, cognitive transformation, and institutional misconduct. It suggests these changes are more likely to influence an incarcerated person's entrepreneurial intentions and criminal desistance. The six propositions presented shed light on how an incarcerated individual's willingness to change his or her attitudes and develop an entrepreneurial mind-set influence his or her behavior in prison and prepares him or her to prosper in a dynamic and complex world after release. This article argues that the study of one's transformation while incarcerated through the discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities is likely to advance empirical and theoretical perspectives of the fields of entrepreneurship. The examination of how incarcerated persons deal with fear of failure, risk aversion, and identity, in particular, presents great opportunities for future research.

Sykes and Matza introduced neutralization theory in 1957 to explain how juvenile delinquents retain a positive self-image when engaging in delinquent acts. Since then, aspects of neutralization theory have been incorporated into sociological and criminological theories to explain socially deviant behavior. Functional brain mapping research utilizing advanced magnetic resonance imaging techniques has identified complex, intrinsically organized, large-scale brain networks. Higher order operations commonly attributed to three brain networks (default mode network [DMN], central executive network [CEN], salience network [SN]) align closely with neutralization theory. This article briefly discusses brain networks in general and the DMN, CEN, and SN specifically. It also discusses how these networks are involved when engaging in the use of techniques of neutralization and offers implications for future research.

Multidimensional family therapy (MDFT) is an established treatment program for youth displaying multiproblem behavior. We examined whether MDFT decreased criminal offending among cannabis abusing adolescents, as compared with individual psychotherapy (IP). In a Western European randomized controlled trial comparing MDFT with IP, a sample of 169 adolescents with a cannabis disorder completed self-reports on criminal offending. Half indicated they had committed one or more criminal offenses in the 90 days before the baseline assessment. Follow-up assessments were at 6 and 12 months after randomization. The proportion of adolescents reporting nondelinquency increased during the study period, most so in the MDFT condition. In addition, MDFT lowered the number of violent offenses more than IP. This difference was not seen for property crimes. In cannabis abusing adolescents, MDFT is an effective treatment to prevent and reduce criminal offending. MDFT outperforms IP for violent crimes.

General strain theory (GST) has been one of the most frequently tested criminological theories. According to GST, strain tends to generate negative emotions, which create pressures for corrective action, such as crime and delinquency. Although GST has received strong empirical support, one under-addressed issue is the lack of diversity in sampling population in assessing the generalizability of the theory. Using survey data collected from 335 incarcerated women in four Chinese prisons, this study examined the impact of strain and negative emotions on the level of female criminality. The strain variable, physical abuse, and discrimination, exerted a positive effect on female inmates' levels of criminality, whereas negative emotions were not significantly related to female criminality. Two control variables, age of current offense and educational attainment, were predictive of female criminality, with younger and less-educated women having more serious criminality. Implications for future research and policy are discussed., (© The Author(s) 2015.)

General theory attributes criminal behavior primarily to low self-control, whereas evolutionary neuroandrogenic (ENA) theory envisions criminality as being a crude form of status-striving promoted by high brain exposure to androgens. General theory predicts that self-control will be negatively correlated with risk-taking, while ENA theory implies that these two variables should actually be positively correlated. According to ENA theory, traits such as pain tolerance and muscularity will be positively associated with risk-taking and criminality while general theory makes no predictions concerning these relationships. Data from Malaysia and the United States are used to test 10 hypotheses derived from one or both of these theories. As predicted by both theories, risk-taking was positively correlated with criminality in both countries. However, contrary to general theory and consistent with ENA theory, the correlation between self-control and risk-taking was positive in both countries. General theory's prediction of an inverse correlation between low self-control and criminality was largely supported by the U.S. data but only weakly supported by the Malaysian data. ENA theory's predictions of positive correlations between pain tolerance, muscularity, and offending were largely confirmed. For the 10 hypotheses tested, ENA theory surpassed general theory in predictive scope and accuracy., (© The Author(s) 2014.)

A decade old theory hypothesizes that brain exposure to androgens promotes involvement in criminal behavior. General support for this hypothesis has been provided by studies of postpubertal circulating levels of testosterone, at least among males. However, the theory also predicts that for both genders, prenatal androgens will be positively correlated with persistent offending, an idea for which no evidence currently exists. The present study used an indirect measure of prenatal androgen exposure-the relative length of the second and fourth fingers of the right hand (r2D:4D)-to test the hypothesis that elevated prenatal androgens promote criminal tendencies later in life for males and females. Questionnaires were administered to 2,059 college students in Malaysia and 1,291 college students in the United States. Respondents reported their r2D:4D relative finger lengths along with involvement in 13 categories of delinquent and criminal acts. Statistically significant correlations between the commission of most types of offenses and r2D:4D ratios were found for males and females even after controlling for age. It is concluded that high exposure to androgens during prenatal development contributes to most forms of offending following the onset of puberty., (© The Author(s) 2013.)