The article presents a psychological analysis of individual perpetrator of the robbery. Explores issues of disclosure causes and conditions conducive to the commission of violent crimes, including robberies. We consider the socio-psychological, physiological factors of formation and development of criminal activities of a violent nature. Revealed psychological mechanisms to establish the circumstances of robbery based on the disclosure of personal activity in the mechanism of interaction of subjects of criminal activity. Set of causal factors in the mechanism of relations commission or concealment of robberies and to counter violent crimes.
Unfortunately, examples of committed violent looting are part of our everyday life and they constantly present in our criminal chronicle. Every day in our country there are approximately 50 robberies, of which one-third, are made in the capital city. These trends in the implementation of the robberies are related to the participation of a large percentage of offenders in them that have expressed antisocial orientation, a higher risk and higher aggressiveness. The percentage of recidivists is on a great scale, they are about one-third in carrying out robberies and more than one third of robberies are committed in complicity and preliminary conspiracy of individuals. In the last few years there have been more frequent armed robberies over jewelry stores, shops, small and large stores against collection vehicles (incaso) and banks.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the U.S.A. defines robbery as one of the eight most serious crimes worldwide.
In each country, looting affects both citizens directly or indirectly affected, and also the representatives of the institutions involved in its prevention interception and investigation.
Brutal aggression and arrogance of the robbery perpetrators is arising from the significant marginalization and stagnation of significant public segments who are in a state of existential hopelessness. Having got to that point the offender is seen completely humiliated, embarrassed that he was deprived of the social identity of a member of those groups that can and that have. This makes him alienated and hostile to the society, from which, according to his understanding, he is rejected and ignored. His hostility is transformed into aggression, which refers to the property of those who have it. In that way he equals his capabilities in his own opinion, with others to whose standard and lifestyles he sets his goals.
Among psychological prerequisites for committing robbery as an essential must be specified the anonymity of the victim and the perpetrator. Anonymity is a defense mechanism to deal with remorse and guilt in the perpetrators, while facilitating the use of violence and brutality in defeating the resistance of the victim.
A characteristic feature in the performance of the robbery is to establish total control over the victim by beating or life threatening with a weapon with which the offender demonstrates power and inspires fear and respect. Robberies are intended offenses where offenders seek to minimize contingencies. In practice, there are numerous of cases in which absence of typical elements of robbery raises reasonable suspicion of staging. In each such incident at risk are the first minutes that perpetrators themselves are also under a lot of stress and tension. There are cases of excessive cruelty in establishing control over the victim, which is an indicator of a perpetrator with low self-control or psychopathic personality structure, which involves experiencing pleasure of violence.
There are many reasons that «impede» the investigation and contribute to the low rate of detection of this type of crime. Crimes of this type are usually executed very quickly, victims and witnesses are often so surprised and frightened that they cannot give a description of the attacker, or some other valuable information to the investigators. On the next place, unlike other types of crime /theft, murder, etc. / evidence for this type of crime is rarely left and found.
Robberies have the highest degree of danger among mercenary — assignment crimes, because in achieving of self-serving purpose through them is damaged mental and physical health of the victims. Undoubtedly there are a large amount of robberies in which the main purpose or motive is the self-interest, and used aggression in its physical and verbal varieties is only a means to achieve it.
The materials of the daily crime news lead to a new hypothesis. In accordance with it a selfish and aggressive violent motive equally takes part in the planning and implementation of criminal offenses. If at the initial moment of the offense approaches the material benefit seems like a goal, and violence is just a tool, it is in a detail analysis of the situation things get the opposite dimensions or have equal importance in terms of the current situation o fa particular offender. Transformations of the motive into a purpose, and the purpose into means are possible and have dual nature. In accordance with the criminal and profiling feature of robbery is taking the possession of another person with an intention to unlawfully appropriate for this using force or threat /under Article198, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Bulgaria / The legislature, however, requires the threat to be real, which means it directly exposes to serious danger life, health, honor and property of the threatened or another person presenting there. The use of verbal or physical aggression can lead as result, to paralyze the activity of the victim, causing high level of stress and frustration, which can be dangerous to life and health, to affect deeply the dignity of the victim. All these are not artifacts and effects, but elements of the criminal act itself, whose realization depends on the motivation of the perpetrator, the specifics of its goal-setting, which determines how he perceives victim's situation and his own participation in it.
The Criminal Code of the Republic of Bulgaria also includes the situation in which an act started as theft, can finish as robbery / under Article 198, paragraph 3 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Bulgaria /. In this case, the perpetrator shows consistency and perseverance to achieve his goal by using direct aggression, which changes the situation both for him and the victim. This reversal is not only situational, it depends on the perpetrator’s motivation choice and reveals its specificity and its readiness to act extremely aggressively.
There are also aggravated robberies when the property is taken from a person by bringing him into unconscious or a helpless state, and the offender is again punished for robbery / under Article 198, paragraph 4 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Bulgaria. The infliction of a victim to be unconscious or placing him/her in a helpless condition is not derived from the target — an item to be taken and stored. Such extreme interventions towards the victim may be a result of an affective reaction caused by a strong frustration or can be the result of a sadistic and narcissistic predisposition in which the perpetrator is prone to intense, saturated with cruelty aggressive action.
A lot of the current looting has a similar profile, although its initial start is associated with the deployment of a series of mercenary motives, but the situation provokes sadistic narcissistic dispositions of the perpetrator and the whole act turns out into brutal physical abuse of the victim.
The majority of those convicted of robbery people are men. Looting is a typical «youth» crime — 68.9 % of the perpetrators of the robbery are young people aged 14 to 25 years /by NSI data/. Adolescence by itself could not be seen as a criminogenic factor at all, including in relation with committing crimes. It is a special period of human life, which seemed to be related with a mismatch between the physical and social maturation, and the preparation for self-fulfillment of social functions and roles takes longer time. Socialization of the individual, social norms and values, the change in social position is a process that is possible in some cases not to run smoothly, sometimes may occur clashes and contradictions which, reinforced by factors favoring anti-social orientation of the individual, can lead to carrying out various forms of antisocial behavior, including a robbery.
The main reason for carrying out the robbery and necessary element of the offense is the self-regard. It is a part with varying degrees of intensity in the motivational structure of all perpetrators. Together with mercenary, also present hooligan motives. They are related to the influence of desire to just misunderstood expression, manifestation in a challenging form of display — dismissive attitude to the established norms of behavior.
Except the mercenary motive, as leading motivation of the robbery are identified such motives as seeking self-realization and self-demonstration, hostile attitudes, experiences of permissiveness, negativism to limitations and hypertrophied egocentrism. When the individual cases of robbery are analyzed, the mentioned motives play a much larger role compared to the self-interest. Often in the very selfish aspirations of the perpetrator of the robbery is shown dissatisfaction striving to self-manifestation and also deficits of self-assertion.
Like other types of offenses the attitude of robberies has been subject of various attempts to build typology.
The problem of the typology of criminals has important theoretical and practical significance. It derives directly from the essence, purposes and tasks of the typology as a process of differentiation and dividing of perpetrators of crimes in certain signs. As far as this property differentiation, phenomena or objects always involves integrations, typology of criminals is defined as integration process of aggregation and clustering. For these reasons in typologies developed for the needs of criminological and forensic studies and surveys, important psychological qualities and signs which present in implicit form and are essential for an understanding of the psychological nature of the robbery can be found.
According to the degree of «evil» depth and persistence of antisocial attitude can be divided mainly three types of spoilers:
- *situational,
- *unsustainable,
- *virulent.
Situational robbers are convicted for the first time. The majority of this group of convicted people committed the crime under the influence of extremely unfavorable external circumstances. The most often alcohol played a dominant role in shaping the reasons — mainly hooliganism and emulation. Motivation in this category of robbery perpetrators is primarily associated with inadequate attempts to self-assertion, disregarding the restrictions and prohibitions, following the authority, submission to group pressure and influence. Such category of offenders does not usually act alone and acts as a «second number» in the realization of a criminal offense.
The current presence of multiple social outcasts and marginalized people experiencing leads to filling the ranks of situational offenders who easily succumb to cyclical temptations, angrily throwing to overcome the defined limits and under the influence of momentary originated affect, act too fiercely, ignoring the possible adverse consequences as well as suffering of the victim.
For the second type — unsustainable is typical to have committed a crime for the first time, but had prior open misbehavior that has been primarily expressed in alcohol abuse, bullying, wrong attitude to work and learning, and immoral behavior. Among unsustainable type outstands a group of offenders who, with conviction, that are responsible for the robbery, were sentenced for other crimes mostly theft or any other robbery.
At unsustainable perpetrators of robbery presents a more developed criminal career in which burglary is one of the turning acts made by the offender. His criminal activities are interrelated and are based on certain internal logic that can be easily understood when examined socialization cycle of the offender and the situations in which he acts. At the bottom of such acts there are problems, such as deficit of recognition, inadequate experience of self-assertion, inferiority complexes associated with the weaker sex and functioning of the male model. All these predispositions can easily be implemented in an active crime situation in which models and strategies are only expression, communication, and spending their leisure time have transformed into antisocial dimensions, but this is considered as natural and normal.
Unsustainable offenders can develop direct and indirect forms of aggression on group influences with deviant content. Unlike situational offenders, they have a higher degree of nihilism to disable possess more fully structured criminal records, and are prone to various acts of aggression. The situation has on their respective impact, but their criminal actions are largely internally driven, which is why some of them are prepared and planned appropriately. All these are indicators of more serious criminal behavior in unstable perpetrators of robbery.
Those with the highest degree of resistance to anti-social orientation, with acclaimed stereotypes of criminal behavior, form the group of the malignant type. They have past convictions, mostly for theft, intentional bodily injury, rape and vandalism. Representatives have a stable criminal career, resistant antisocial values and attitudes and are too violent because of repeated sentences which they have serviced in places for deprivation of liberty.
For the purposes of forensic practice American experts have developed a variant of empirical typology, which includes residential robbery, looting of shops, street robberies, robberies of vehicles drivers and kidnapping of the latter.
Residential burglaries include those robberies in which the offender enters the dwelling and uses force against the occupier to take money or valuables. It is not uncommon perpetrator and the victim to know each other and the victim is selected because the robber knows or suspects possession of valuables in the house. Even if both parties do not know each other, the victim is chosen for the same reasons.
Perpetrators of residential robberies are usually armed with a firearm, knife or other weapon. In the type described, robbery offender has information in advance that does not substantially reduce the risk that he will act in a situation with many unknown dangers. Taking on such challenges can be performed by adetermined, calm, considerate and inventive person. He knows how to make a good practical analysis of each situation and quickly adapt to changes in the environment, showing high frustration endurance. We can assume that the perpetrator of this robbery will have enviable concentration and twisting of attention, developed volume of memory, fast and accurate motor reactions. Obviously the perpetrator knows how much will expeditiously assess the actions of the victim to attack it in the right way and at the right time.
The use of weapons in this group robbery shows that their perpetrators are highly aggressive mode, easily customizable victim. This may be due to increased egocentrism, stabilized aggressive spanari built alienation and bitterness toward others, excessive motivation and respectively anxiety arising from the desire to achieve the goal. The sense of danger in a situation of high uncertainty and risk raises increasing of aggressiveness to put the victim under control quickly and overcome operational problems suddenly after appearing. The way of performing the action itself further mobilizes aggressive potentials of the perpetrator who has high output aggressiveness. Based on the reasoning adduced we can try to build a generalized portrait of the type committed the robbery. He has a high aggressive mode, ability for quick mobilization of personal potentials, coordination, concentration and control of his own emotions. This category of offenders have developed frustration durability, effective orientation and reaction rapidly when changing situation, thanks to successfully attack and disarm their victim using exhaust aggressive maneuvers and means.
The most common example of robberies of commercial property is robbery of a bank, small shops, supermarkets, stores that are open till late or work round-the-lock.
With the exception of bank robbers who can be both professionals and amateurs, the most ferocious are experienced criminals. These are people who have certain skills and training to do so.
Professional robbers have a high risk preparedness and relevant to it frustration sustainability. They are able to take a variety of stresses and surprises in the process of realization of their criminal intention. In many cases similar category offenders do not hesitate and act consistently, even when the situation develops contrary to their expectations and intentions. They have rigid attitudes to actively counter the police and all other security formations. Part of the professional repertoire of these offenders is associated with proficiency in arme blanche, firearms and martial arts techniques. It is this type of skill, in which the structure of the specific techniques is integrated into psychoregulative number of mechanisms to ensure the effective realization. Extraordinary is the number of street robberies that take place in public places such as streets, walkways, paths and car parks. Usually they are rapid in making their bets on momentary opportunity. Often, events are moving so fast that the victim cannot give the police anything but a cursory description of the offender. The offender can end victim ran so fast that it fails even to see it clearly.
In street robbery the striker in most cases hurts the victim, and pushed him/her to the ground and hit him/her. Street robbers use weapons or rely on speed, shock, or the hustle and the element of surprise, to commit robbery.
As older people are defenseless, they are often victims of street robberies. There are also younger people, objects of robbery because street robbers take every opportunity granted for them.
The main characteristics of the group robberies are related to suddenness, speed, intense, aggressive intervention for the victim, maximum masking his own contribution, choosing the appropriate moment to attack and target the more vulnerable and defenseless victims. These hallmarks of actual criminal naturally correspond with the relevant properties of its perpetrators. He must be able to navigate quickly to the specific situation and rapidly to proceed into action. This can be an effective, the engine type of person with advanced perception and skills to build effective tactical calculations. To some extent he must percept the whole situation as a game to be free and spontaneous improvisation through their actions. These people have good situational object reflection, an eye for detail, but they are not interested in the experiences of others. The combination of these personal characteristics enables them to act quickly as predators relentlessly attacking the weaker victims, exploit the surprise, fear and confusion. Due to these intense experiences of the victim, the latter either fails to react at all, or to remember the attacker and cannot contribute to any detection and identification.
The perpetrators of the robbery type must be active, energetic, very good motor coordination and have abilities to bean accurate snapshot of the situation and emerging opportunities.
Another common category of robbers are drug addicts. They usually pillage to get their own drugs. For them, the offense is a vocation to a relatively small extent. Robbery for them is just a means to obtain money to buy drugs. Since robbery is more dangerous than other types of crime, drug addicts resort to it less than theft. Robbers drug addicts often act desperately casually in robberies and generally bad victims from selected group of robbers have low effective criminal style as refining their actions are not planning situation and realize their actions on impulse under the influence of the resulting hunger for drugs . It is this experience, however, that makes them potentially dangerous. When they encounter obstacles and resistance they can rapidly transform all its destructive experiences in aggressiveness and direct them to the emerging situational victim. Cases like these, quite naturally, can lead to severe injury or even death. Such a development is potentially possible, although addicts rarely choose robbery as their options for action. In such cases, you should always consider the fact that when an offender is suffering from drug addiction, desperate act, he made a number of negligence which, because of his condition can seriously threaten the health and life of his victim.
Practice shows that the motivational sphere of the perpetrator of the robbery, no matter how primitive it could be, there is a «selectivity» of the leading motives according to the situation. Most common is the case where the victim knows the perpetrator. He is guided by feeling for self-preservation act extremely aggressively to conceal himself, to «defend». The motive of self-protection is revealed as extremely ugly form of protection of self-interest associated with great understanding of the merits of their own biological integrity «can be» pushed «into the background even sadistic motives manned central motif — the self-interest.
More complex patterns characterize the actions of the leaders of organized criminal groups in preparing the big robbery (secure objects on motorways of collection vehicles, etc.). They seek to select the composition of the group of former and current police officers, redundant military people through encouragement and stimulation. Reasons for such action shall be limited to seeking to obtain precise information on the location, subject and site security of the robbery, information on the tactics of the Ministry of Interior to supply and method of using the weapon, to study the operational activities of police officers during scenario «police check» on motorways and other objects for professional concealing the traces of a crime and others.
It is important to note that the encouragement and monetary stimulus from the psychological point of view, are not motives by themselves and cannot become reasons if they are not accepted by personality. In short, the incentive becomes a motive if it is «understood conscious» and «accepted» by the personality.
Episodic and high latency is a criminal motive, characterized adaptability and activity of the person in robbery of fear and apprehension of bodily harm or refused indecision of committing the offense. If this «weakness» a rises during its implementation, the robbery should be completed by the leader.
Motives, considered so far dominate to certain extent in motivating field of the perpetrators of the robbery, also suggest difficulties in their classification. Although mercenary motive is relatively stable in the robbery, it and the reasons for violence are under the decisive influence of emotions. However, change «their energy», but not the content side, emotions provide not only external «color» of the criminal behavioral act, but brings significant changes in the level of expression of reasons. As an element of personal motivational complex emotions enhance the extent of expression mainly on the grounds of a violent, aggressive character. With that they «contribute» to commit crimes and other accompanying looting — especially rape, murder and more.
Study and systematization of information about characteristic traits and attitudes which determine the criminal behavior of those convicted of robbery, allows synthesis of four relatively individual conditions for criminal identification of the perpetrator of the robbery. To certain extent it can be said that they emphasize certain properties (quality, features, orientations, attitudes) that affect the criminal behavior of the person associated with the robbery.
Self-interest primarily mercantilist motive definitely takes dominant place — 99.4 % in the motivational sphere of the perpetrators of the robbery. As the main motive and goal oriented and strive to achieve material benefits characterized as «self-interest», which is a major stimulator of the criminal conduct of the plunderer. His feature accompanying the prey is the lack of work habits and his unwillingness to work marked among 32.4 % of convicted criminals.
The second condition relates to the presence of persistent antisocial behavior among 61.4 % of the perpetrators of the robbery. Surveyed properties as impulsivity — 29 % aggressiveness — 50.6 %, cruelty — % represent its essential core, according to X. Zuckerman (1999) and mark degrees of violence characteristic of criminal behavior of individuals during
In the preparation and implementation of the robbery there is a deep adhesion of the two prerequisites, generally speaking of prey and violence.
Mercenary crime has most visible outlines in the general structure of crime in Bulgaria. During the different stages of social development, it has a different percentage, but always has had a leading position among the other types of crime — both in terms of overall number of mercenary crimes, and in their share. This is a normal tendency for all countries in the world that has its place in our country.
According to statistics robberies are about 3.0 % of the total enacted with conviction offenses and 8.7 % of the total enacted with conviction offenses against property in Bulgaria. Over the transitional years the number of robberies increased significantly.
The General trend since 2002 has been that violent crimes such as robbery (has) decreased in the period from 2005 to 2008. This still remains noticeable in most countries in Western Europe as well as in the Republic of Bulgaria. It is noteworthy that the levels recorded in the Scandinavian countries as the highest ones for 2008 (using 2005 as the base) are in Denmark (130), Sweden (115) and Finland (113). Robberies carried out in Denmark increased twice between 2005 and 2008 in most other countries, the incidence of robberies decreased even in countries where violence is generally increased by Luxembourg, Sweden, Finland, France and Italy are found even greater downturns. These falls were observed in Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Romania.
The overall conclusion of the level of ongoing robbery in the European Union reported a reduction of about ten percent between 2005 and 2008.
Contrary to common perception, today crimes are more prevalent in Europe than in the U.S., while the opposite was true thirty years ago. These data can be found in the annexes.
During 1970 the total crime in seven European countries that contribute more than 80 % of the EU population before 2004 and are comparable to the U.S. population / Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and UK / 63 %, the equivalent figure in the U.S., and since 2007 is 85 % higher than in the U.S. This is an impressive reversal of the results of the steady increase in the overall level of crime in Europe over the past 40 years and the depreciation of the U.S. after 1990. Although in this case the U.S. and Europe have run on a general trend since 1990, the European rate in 2007 was still 20 % above the rate in the U.S., while in 1970 the ratio was less than 1/3. The same pattern is found when looking at individual countries, with the exception of France and Italy. These applications reveal significant differences between Europe and the U.S. experience the U.S.A. Obviously a history success in crime control in comparison with that what happened on the other side of the Atlantic / see attachments/.
- Registered offense is any alleged offense, on which are formed pre-trial proceedings by the prosecutor and the investigation is entrusted to the investigating police officer from Ministry of Interior, or inspection is completed and the materials are sent to the prosecution of opinion formation pre-trial In the registered are only included crimes for the year.
- Solve a crime is a criminal offense whose perpetrator was captured in the scene, personally appeared in recognition of a crime or was revealed by the police in carrying out operational activities check or pretrial investigation and materials are collected and transmitted to the prosecuting authorities, those imposing administrative sanction for the offense. In detected crimes are included all detected and revealed in the current and previous years.
These basic sets of properties that identify the robber depend on the origin of the environment that creates distortions in the personality structure of the criminal by virtue of its destructiveness, and unsociality level of criminalization. The study of behavioral attitudes and attributes that identify the perpetrators of the robbery shows a high amount of «adaptability to criminal behavior». This means on the one hand, psychological inability of the individual to resist patterns of criminal communication, the pressure to commit criminal action by the criminals from the nearest environment. Moreover continuous communication with criminals from the social circle of family, street, relatives, places where addicts meet leads to natural adaptability, empathy and focus on expression in joint or separate criminal acts.
Criminal microcosm (family, circle of friends) supports non-conscious or deliberate alienation from education, outstanding legal illiteracy established in one third of the prisoners. Particularly harmful in them turns to be «belief in impunity» as well as false suggestion that motivated the decision to perform a robbery.
In the personal — psychological outlook of robbers egocentrism is central as comprehensive quality presupposes other negative qualities inherent in this type of perpetrator of crimes against property of the citizens. This quality destabilizes rational, emotional and moral structures of personality.
This profile would be incomplete if we do not note that discussed above prerequisites that identify the personality of the spoiler, the influence to promote aggressiveness. It generates the criminal action as behavioral readiness of the individual to aggressive behavior to implement the forced withdrawal of the property from the victim. Depending on the situation and goals, aggression gets different forms.
The authors of the robbery would not fulfill effectively their criminal intentions, if not highly aggressive mode, ability to mobilize and regulate their emotions. They have a good frustration durability, fast response speed and orientation in a rapidly changing situation.
The study of personality should not be confined within the limits of the relationship between personality dispositions and mental processes. They should encompass the study of open behavior, particularly behaviors aimed at protecting, maintaining and developing personal integrity. In this class individual behavior has immediate expression, as their content and orientation reflect in the content of individual regulatory structures. Such behavior is self-evaluation, self-presentation, symbolizing etc. The dynamics of this behavior can reveal important aspects of the organization of personal regulation in norms and pathology.