Criminal Motives and Psychological Features of the Imprisoned

Introduction. The article considers the problem of concepts about criminal motivation as a complex integrative phenomenon, including the hierarchy of motives that lead to the commission of various crimes, as well as the relationship of criminal motives with personal characteristics. The purpose is to identify the specifics of the personal characteristics of the imprisoned. Materials and Methods. The study was conducted on a sample of one hundred and twenty convicts who were in correctional facilities of the subject of the Russian Federation, sixty of whom had not been brought to criminal justice. R. Cattell’s 16-factor personality questionnaire and Yu. A. Malyushina’s questionnaire «Dominant criminal motive» were employed. The authors also used Excel software package and descriptive statistics methods. Results and Discussion. The authors reveal six main types of criminal motivation and levels of manifestation of different forms of criminal motive among imprisoned convicts. It is stated that social factors have a negative impact on people’s moral and psychological qualities. The convicts have motives of self-affirmation, play and aggression as the dominant ones. Representatives of the mentioned category prefer satisfaction of needs through unlawful behaviour, and they have low norms of behaviour. Conclusions. Personal features of convicts and those who had not been brought to criminal justice, convicts’ prevailing criminal motives, interrelations of personal peculiarities and criminal motives were revealed