Understanding Criminal Behaviour: Psychosocial Perspectives on Criminality and Violence

Our understanding of criminal behaviour and its causes has been too long damaged by the failure to integrate the emotional, psychological, social and cultural influences on the way people behave.

This book offers a concise and accessible introduction to criminal behaviour, examining and integrating perspectives from criminology and psychology. It proposes a range of ‘psychosocial’ approaches that seek to understand the emotions that surround criminal behaviour, allowing for an exploration of individual differences and social and cultural issues that help to bridge the gap between disciplinary approaches. It offers substantive chapters on a range of topics, including:

• mental disorder and the relationship between mental health and offending;
• criminal career research;
• youth crime and the question of criminal responsibility;
• gender and crime; and
• violent crime, including homicide and sexual crime.

This new edition has been fully updated, including a revised opening chapter that offers an introduction to psychosocial criminology, up-to-date discussion of changes in the criminal justice system in the context of mental health, and two new chapters on race and crime, and public violence, extremism and terrorism.

This book is essential reading for students taking a range of courses on criminal behaviour, criminological theory, criminal psychology and psychological criminology.