Patterns of Criminal Behavior Among Inmates at Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm

Introduction

Crime is an act committed or omitted in violation of a public law, forbidding or commanding it. Thus, without any law defining or forbidding a certain act, there will be no crime. Any person, who violates the law or commits a crime, cannot be punished unless there is a law which defines the said crime committed, and prescribes the proper penalty. Hence, penology cannot exist without criminal law. Furthermore, Penology is a study pertaining to crime, criminal's acts and their corresponding punishment; it also covers the scientific aspect and philosophy justifying the punishment of the violation of laws, which we call crimes.

How do some people decide to commit a crime? Do they think about the benefits and the risks? Why do some people commit crimes regardless of the consequences? Why do others never commit a crime, no matter how desperate their circumstances? Criminology is the study of crime and criminals by specialists called criminologists. Criminologists study what causes crime and how it might be prevented.

Throughout history people have tried to explain what causes abnormal social behavior, including crime. Efforts to control "bad" behavior go back to ancient Babylon's Code of Hammurabi some 3,700 years ago. Later in the seventeenth century European colonists in North America considered crime and sin the same thing. They believed evil spirits possessed those who did not conform to social norms or follow rules. To maintain social order in the settlements, persons who exhibited antisocial behavior had to be dealt with swiftly and often harshly.

Reasons for committing a crime include greed, anger, jealously, revenge, or pride. Some people decide to commit a crime and carefully plan everything in advance to increase gain and decrease risk. These people are making choices about their behavior; some even consider a life of crime better than a regular job believing crime brings in greater rewards, admiration, and excitement at least until they are caught. Others get an adrenaline rush when successfully carrying out a dangerous crime. Others commit crimes on impulse, out of rage or fear.

To secure justice, the state has an existence of its own to maintain a conscience of its own to assert, are moral principles to vindicate. Penal justice must therefore be exercised by the state in the service and satisfaction of duty and rests primarily in the moral rightfulness of the punishment to be inflicted. Originated from God, punishment and penalties were enforced which we called "Natural Law". Adam and Eve broke the law, so they were the first criminals, as they were punished by exile or banishment from the Garden of Eden. Penalty in general signifies pain; especially considered in the judicial sphere, it means suffering undergone because of the action of human society, to one who commits crime.

The positive school of Criminology also known as the Italian School of Criminology was inaugurated in 1872, by Italian army surgeon, Cesar Lombroso. Aside from being an army doctor is also an anthropologist, who published his book "Criminal Man", 100 years after the publication of Becarria book, "Crime and Punishment". This book written by Lombroso was duly supplemented by the writings of Enrico Ferri in 1881 in his work "Criminal Sociology". As we have said, both writers were Italian, Hence, the Italian school of Criminology or positive school. It is also called positive school because it used the method, which brings positive and definite ideas. The school views crime as a social phenomenon and attaches importance to the criminal offenders. To this effect, a criminal is like a sick man who needs not to be punished but treated in a hospital so that his illness that has something to do in the commission of crime may be cured. The concept of guilt should be treated in the correctional institution to constitute a criminology school.

Conclusions were drawn in Lombroso's theory; that there is a distinct, born criminal type; the person who is born criminal type cannot refrain from committing crime unless he live under exceptionally favorable circumstances. Furthermore, some experts believed psychiatric disorder of the mind is the cause of crime. On the other hand, psychiatric disorder needs more investigation and studies before its finding can be perfected.

One of the earliest theories of criminal behavior known as Phrenology argued that the development and shape of the brain affected personality and social behavior. But the growth of medical research technology changed the idea and stressed that the structure and function of the brain is affected by different causes like; damages to certain parts, pre natal and early childhood traumas or stressors can be impact the brain development and perhaps contribute to anti- social behavior including