Forming a juvenile delinquent’s personality

Abstract

This paper attempts the following: (a) to discuss the domestic concepts of the
delinquent’s personality; (b) to analyze the age characteristics of puberty and various
views on the factors influencing the delinquent’s personality; (c) to present the study of
personal traits of adolescents committed a theft and the influence of a family situation
and the criminal social environment on illegal behavior; (d) to reveal the association
among aggressiveness, anxiety, and frustration, as well as their role in human behavior.

The results of the study indicated the following: (a) Delinquent adolescents had a high level of anxiety (both situational and personal) and high levels of rigidity and frustration. (b) A negative family situation influenced the delinquent adolescent’s personality. (c) Juvenile delinquents explained their own nonconformity by inconsequent parental upbringing. (d) Delinquent adolescents emphasized fathers’ directivity in their upbringing. (e) The educational influence of fathers was important in forming the adolescent’s delinquency. (f) The mother’s control of the adolescent’s behavior influenced the development of a law-abiding person. (g) The influence of relatives who had previously served a sentence of deprivation of liberty determined delinquent adolescents’ neuroticism and its illegality.
The main results revealed the following psychological defense mechanisms in delinquent adolescents: projection (attributing one’s own thoughts, feelings, motives,  and traits to anyone or anything, as well as the perception of internal phenomena as external ones) and rationalization (substitution of true reasons of behavior or decisions for other rational explanations safe for self-appraisal).
Delinquent adolescents’ neuroticism correlated with previous convictions of close relatives. These results suggest that emotional instability is a consequence of convicted family members’ influence and explain the criminal manifestation of neuroticism and anxiety. The number of previous convictions correlated with delinquents’ emotional instability.