FREUDIAN PSYCHOLOGY AS AN EXPLANATION OF DRUG-RELATED CRIME
For many years most criminal offenders were said by psychologists to have some sort of psychological disorder. Psychologists usually rely on theories to determine the disorder. "By designing objective and measurable tests of their theories, psychologists attempt to obtain a better understanding of behavior and mental processes (p.2-3 Roesch). One of the premiere psychologies in this area is Freudian psychology, which has applications in the area of law and psychology, and helps evaluate the assumptions that the law must make about human behavior, and the ways in which the law responds to the changes in society that require changes in law. This paper will explore the utility of Freudian psychology as an explanation of one particular type of crime, drug-related crime.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Illegal drug use is an activity in which a person introjects, almost in variably by choice, a banned pharmaceutical product that directly affects only that person though the act can have far-reaching effects in terms of crime, dying accidents, and illness, among other things (Brown p.548).
About 70% of the federal prison inmates are drug offenders. In the structural theory of the psychoses titled “The Missing Link”, Sigmund Freud postulated that all ailment came from frustration and led to tensions which ultimately were reflected in more or less conscious fantasies. These fantasies could possibly lead to drugs, one form of crime. Freud suggested that there were many causes that may explain why people might turn toward this type of behavior. Several causes may consist of accidental mishap during the birth process or the weaning process. Examples of these types of complications are childbirth complications, illness or death of the mother, or the absence of the father. Childbirth complications may come from the mother’s insensitivity to the unborn child in her womb. If the mother was on drugs while carrying the child in her womb, once the child is born, he/she will be addicted to that particular type of drug. The child may not come in contact with the particular drug at once, but as the child gets older and begins to experience life (the teenage years) they may be faced with the drugs. Thus, remembering the feeling while in the mother’s womb, he/she becomes addicted once more and then becomes a statistic.
Many people do not consider a father being a necessary essential in a child’s life, but having a father around especially for males play a very important role for future endeavors. In most cases without a father present in males lives they may feel that they have very few things in common with their mother, and also that they have no one to talk to about their problems (especially if they have no female siblings). This leaves them looking for someone or something to fill that space in their lives and most likely it will be the streets and drugs, so they may fill that emptiness by doing drugs. They may fill that by doing drugs it will lift all of their burdens and erase their problems. This may be true while they are on their high, but when their high has gone down then they are still faced with the same problems.
In Freud’s psychoanalytic theories he compared the human mind to an iceberg: We only see a little bit of it (the conscious) peeking out above the vast depths of the unconscious. Through the analysis of free associations, dreams, and early childhood memories, Freud tried to figure out the basic elements of personality. He considered personality to be composed of three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego.
The Id
The id consists of all inherited components of personality, including sex drives and aggression. The id seeks immediate gratification of primitive impulses. It operates on the pleasure principle, seeking to avoid pain and maximize gratification. The id has some justification to why most people would turn towards drugs for fulfillment. It operates on the pleasure principle, which means that most people would turn towards drugs to make themselves happy. They also may be trying to turn away from some painful situation or circumstance in their lives.
The ego can be said to obey the reality principle. The ego is also considered to be the id’s controller. When people are faced with the reality that drugs does not wash away the unhappiness in their lives, this is the ego stepping in. They have to realize that even though the drive to do drugs might be a little stronger than they are, that they are the one’s who has the upper hand and controls the drive and their actions.
The superego incorporated the values and morals of society, which are learnt from one’s parents and others. Often, when a child is young they follow the actions of their parents and the people around them. They may see their parents in the act of doing drugs, therefore when they become older they may feel that it is okay for them to do as they saw their parents were doing. The superego develops as a result of rewards and punishments as one grows up. Its function is to control the id’s impulses, especially those which society forbids, such as drug use.
Freud and his daughter suggested that there was a way of reducing this sort of tension, which was to adopt methods of reductions called defense mechanisms. These mechanisms included:
Repression- Forcing the uncomfortable desires, the painful feelings into the unconscious.
Projection- Attributing their unacceptable thoughts and feeling to others.
Displacement- Redirecting their unacceptable urges on to a substitute.
RESEARCH METHODS
The following graphs are evidence of Annual drug deaths, and other data pertaining to drugs from related Web sites.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Andrew and Bonita stated that the role of psychology in explaining crime can be quite confusing, but Sigmund Freud’s development of the three personality traits (the id, ego and superego) were very transparent of what may be the cause of people turning towards drug-related crime.
We have discovered that by relating to this particular type of crime, that something may have went wrong during the individual’s childhood. The individual might have been without either parent figure or the mother could have been a drug user. As we have discovered many people do not feel that these facts are roles for determining why people turn towards this type of behavior.
By focusing on Freud’s personality traits we discovered something different. Although through the personality traits we discovered reasons for committing drug-related crime, these reasons may only be limited information. Often during research we have to leave room for other possibilities, so therefore we have to leave room for more in depth possibilities that might come from other psychologists.
REFERENCES
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Bettelheim, B. (1969). Children of the dream. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company.
Brown, E. Srephen, Finn-Aage, Esbensen and Gilbert Geis: Criminology: Explaining Crime and its Context. Cincinnati: Anderson, 2001.
Currie, E. (1993). Reckoning: Drugs, the cities, and the American Future. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.
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Esbensen, F. & D. Huizinga (1993). “Gangs, Drugs, and Delinquency in a Survey of Urban Youth”. Criminology, 31: 565-587.
Hunan, W. H. (1997). “Drug Arrests Rise 18% on Major College Campuses”. New York Times, (March 16):A15.