Criminal Behaviour - Key Concepts

A criminal act is any behaviour that breaks the law, however, as crime changes over time and in different countries, out definition of criminals shall change.

The common characteristics of criminals include

• impulsiveness
• lacking in feelings of guilt
• pleasure-seeking
• being over-optimistic
• self-importance

However, crime is difficult to measure. Statistics count the number of criminal acts, rather than the number of criminals, so numerous people can commit a singular crime and it is counted as one whereas a serial killer's crimes are counted as numerous. Also, the British crime survey shows that more criminal acts occur than the ones reported. This could be as people believe the crime is silly, may be embarrassed to report it, may not report it in order to protect a loved one or may fear being caught for a separate crime.