The influence of biological and social factors on the formation of the personality of a juvenile offender

The theme of the Master’s thesis is "The Influence of Biological and Social Factors on the Formation of the Personality of a Juvenile Offender". The object of this Master’s thesis is the influence of biological and social factors on the formation of the personality of a juvenile offender. The main aim of this work is to reveal the influence of biological and social factors on the formation of the personality of a juvenile offender. This Master’s thesis is comprised of four parts. The first part presents a short review of the main personality concepts that allow looking at the relations with factors, influencing criminal behaviour of an individual. This part presents the term and typology of a personality of a juvenile offender and analyses the characteristics of his personality traits. This analysis is related to statistical data that reveals what persons have committed crimes during a statistical year (sex, nationality, age, education, etc.). The second part reveals the influence of biological factors on the personality and behaviour of a juvenile offender. Talking about the young people and their behaviour, this part accentuates aggression and presents the theories on the aggressive behaviour that allow getting a better understanding of the reasons for the occurrence and remaining of this behaviour. The main attention is focused on the biological risk factors of asocial behaviour, indicated by authors of various theoretical trends, i.e. such factors that have a potential possibility to disturb normal development of a child. These factors include the influence of hormone activity disorder on the behaviour of the juvenile, structural changes in the brain and genetic inheritance. The review of some researches (twins, relatives, etc.) is presented. The third part of the work analyses the influence of social factors on the personality of the offender. Such factors of teenagers’ social environment as family and home conditions, school attendance and achievements, work and organization of free time, circle of relations with peers, alcohol and drug abuse are assessed. The influence of media on the formation of the personality of a young person is analyzed. It is noted that from a certain development stage of an individual there might occur specific environmental factors that induce the personality of a young person to start developing in an asocial direction. The factors influencing the tendency to criminality of a child indicated in this list of risk factors are related to the flaws of law enforcement institutions’ activities. The fourth part of the Master’s thesis analyses the criminal behaviour from the social and biological perspective in order to assess the interaction of biological and social factors on the personality of a juvenile offender and to explain the genesis of criminal behaviour. The complex nature of asocial behaviour is discussed