Week 4 discussion 1 and 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Week 4 discussion 1 and 2 - Essay Example Freud’s theory asserts that crime is an act that is affected by mental disorder, which causes a conflict between the id, ego and superego, or it may result from an incorrect recording in one of the stages in development. The mental disorder is usually manifested as behavioural problems like social passivity or full aggression. The theory believes that criminal activities committed by individuals are due to personality defect that were affected and disrupted by lack of progressions during childhood developmental stage. A pointing example is that, a boy who commit crime were twice more likely to have experienced severe punishments from their parents. Another study done on juvenile offenders showed that young offenders who were separated from their natural mothers were prone to delinquency in their adolescence stage. Such a study asserts that the association between a child in his/her tender age and their primary caregiver forms the baseline for personality and development in their moral behaviours in adulthood. Defence mechanism as discussed by Freud has an influence in the development of criminal behaviour. For example, in a defence mechanism like displacement; an individual who gets frustrations from their employer may displace the hunger back to children at home by beating or verbally abusive. In addition, his action can lead to misdemeanour like maim which is an offence. However, some defence mechanism like sublimation may prevent an individual from committing an offence. For example, an aggressive person who feels like killing people can go and work in an animal slaughterhouse and slaughter animals rather than kill human beings (Gedo, 2002). Freud theory has some pros and cons. On the pros, the theory provides an insight as to why an individual is involved in criminal activity, and this can be used by a defence counsel in court to seek for the reduction of charges against an accused. However, the