Introduction
Psychological disorders are one of the factors that have a significant influence on crime rates. Such disorders as a defiant disorder, conduct disorder, and antisocial personality disorders may cause a great deal of trouble for the community. There are a number of reasons as to why various disorders are connected to the crime rates and disorders in different communities. First, disorders affect a person’s ability to behave often leading to their losing control over their actions. This malfunction of brain processes results in a person’s being unable to differentiate between “right” and “wrong.” Second, psychological disorders may lead to the inability to empathize with other people, which naturally leads to viewing hurting others as something of little significance. Finally, people that have psychological disorders are often limited in their ability to make logical assumptions and arrive at conclusions based on common sense. Thus, it is evident that psychological disorders may indeed be one of the causes of increasing crime rates and disturbances in public peace. Mentioned disorders and their relation to crime and disorders will be the focus topics of this paper.
Defiant Disorder
It is also referred to as oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). This condition mostly manifests in children of young age (2-4 years old) and early teenagers. Basically, this disorder is characterized by an excessive and overwhelming inability to acknowledge authority (“Oppositional defiant disorder,” 2017). Forms in which the disorder manifests differ substantially. They may be represented by constant arguments with superiors (parents, teachers, etc.), disobedience, back talking to parents or other older adults. However, all of this is quite normal for children in their early teens due to biological changes caused by going through changes developed during the pubertal period. The parents must take notice of their child’s behavior. If these traits persist, it is likely that the child is indeed suffering from ODD.
Psychologically speaking, ODD is a condition in which a person may display an established pattern of turning angry and irritated over seemingly insignificant problems. If this condition establishes, it may come to the point where daily activities are no longer possible to carry out because of the stress and inability to manage one’s temper. Needless to say, family and school lives become almost impossible to handle.
There are nine essential symptoms of this condition. These symptoms are repeated outbursts of uncontrollable behavior, active disobedience (especially to public norms and customs), constant arguing with adults, inability to manage irritation and desire to irritate others, failure to recognize one’s own mistakes, often and sudden anger and resentment outbursts, becoming vindictive and spiteful, excessive swearing and obscene language use, and resorting to saying upsetting things when in bad mood. The additional symptom may manifest in low self-esteem or hazardous habits (drinking, smoking, etc.).
In research performed by Burke, Rowe, and Boylan (2014), the authors conclude that “ODD is a disorder that significantly interferes with functioning, particularly in social or interpersonal relationships” (p. 264). Indeed, it is not hard to see how the inability to acknowledge authority may lead to a child being involved in criminal activity. Moreover, the progression that this disorder allows for leads to the ever-growing inability (that, in turn, transforms into a desire) to become more and more carried away from society. Naturally, it is possible to avoid this manner of progression by ensuring that a child grows in a healthy and safe environment. Moreover, some children are naturally more predisposed to recovering from this condition which increases their chances to become healthy individuals.
Conduct Disorder
If ODD is not addressed early on, it may worsen and lead to new conditions establishing in a child. One of the possible consequences is conduct disorder (CD). Children with this type of disorder often demonstrate outbursts of violence in a disruptive and chaotic manner that is difficult to predict (“Mental health and conduct disorder,” 2017). Naturally, worsened ODD prevents children from following any rules that exist in their environment. Timely management of this condition may result in fast recovery or, at least, prevention of further decrease in behavioral stability. However, it is not rare that this disorder is mistaken for typical behavior that is normal for children of young age. This is why it is so important always to monitor a child’s behavior and social interactions. If parents are attentive enough, their children will not be affected by such disorders. Unfortunately enough, often children are influenced by the environment they live in too much to receive any kind of influence in their family.
As with ODD, some of the symptoms of the conduct disorder are often typical for average teenagers. However, symptoms of the CD are much more extreme and result in far more severe consequences. More importantly, a conduct disorder may and will only be noticed in the long run. The type of behavior associated with CD is persistent and does not shift towards becoming less extreme turning more difficult to manage instead. There are four characteristics of a behavior of a child that has CD. These features are increasingly aggressive behavior, desire to destroy material things, desire to deceive others, and inability to cope with any set of rules. As it becomes evident, this is the natural result of worsening ODD. Already excessively violent behavior turns more intense and uncontrollable, and the chances to recover in time become almost non-existent.
Bowen, Morgan, Moore and van Goozen (2013) state that “Accurately processing emotional facial expressions is critical in everyday functioning as this ability is fundamental to appropriate interpersonal communication … correctly processing others’ distress related-cues (i.e., fear and sadness) can inhibit antisocial behavior (ASB) and that the inability to detect these cues contributes to harmful actions” (p. 60). Thus, antisocial behavior is caused not only by psychological instability but also by biological reasons that make a child unable to recognize other’s emotions and, therefore, decide whether or not it is bad to cause them harm.
Antisocial Personality Disorder
The inability to recognize other’s needs, desires or authority naturally evolves into antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). It is a condition in which a person is unable to understand other’s rights which often results in a violation of those rights and other outbursts of dangerous behavior (Bressert, 2017). Empathy is something that a person with APD often completely lacks, and it becomes impossible for this person to understand how others may feel or how the person’s actions may impact others. More importantly, a person with ASPD often seeks ways of bending the law to their own advantage which creates a possibility for more severe crimes to unfold. Popular culture often refers to this condition as “psychopathy” or “sociopathy.”
Interestingly enough, one of the symptoms of ASPD is inflated and exaggerated self-esteem. The trait that had been completely opposite in ODD and CD periods turns into its direct contrary. This often pushes people with ASPD to artificially increase their knowledge in various fields to surprise other people and suppress their opinions. Furthermore, other people may even find that the traits related to ASPD are somewhat attractive and, due to this, place themselves below an individual with ASPD.
There are seven primary symptoms of ASPD: inability to cope with social norms, desire to lie, impulsivity, excessive aggression and irritation, disregard for the safety of self and others, inability to take responsibility for own actions, little to no remorse. Naturally, a person with ASPD has to have CD when they were in their early teens. Also, there is a particular relation between gender and predisposition to having ASPD: males demonstrate ASPD-related symptoms much more often than females. Naturally, ASPD will only continue to lose intensity over time, as any other personality disorder does.
Regarding antisocial behavior in relation with ASPD, Glenn, Johnson and Raine (2013) state that “research on the etiology of ASPD has established that genetic factors have a significant role in antisocial behavior that begins early and persists into adulthood” (p. 6). This means that there is indeed a connection between excessively antisocial behavior and ASPD-related symptoms and the condition itself.
Conclusion
Every personality disorder mentioned in this paper leads to antisocial disorder. The situation is further worsened by the fact that these disorders may cause each other. From less severe ODD to extreme ASPD, there are numerous factors connected to these conditions. Therefore, each condition requires timely detection and effective prevention. If there will be enough efforts put into action, crime rates, as well as antisocial acts related to these conditions and caused by them, may significantly decrease.
References
Bowen, K. L., Morgan, J. E., Moore, S. C., & van Goozen S. H. M. (2014). Young offenders’ emotion recognition dysfunction across emotion intensities: Explaining variation using psychopathic traits, conduct disorder and offense severity. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 36(1), 60-73.
Bresset, S. (2017). Antisocial personality disorder symptoms. Web.
Burke, J. D., Rowe, R., & Boylan, K. (2014). Functional outcomes of child and adolescent ODD symptoms in young adult men. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 55(3), 264-272.
Glenn, A. L., Johnson, A. K., & Raine, A. (2013). Antisocial personality disorder: A current review. Current Psychiatry Reports, 15(427), 1-8.
Mental health and conduct disorder. (2017). Web.
Oppositional defiant disorder. (2017). Web.