What are theories of deviance and crime?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: What are theories of deviance and crime?
Position‹2 of 2: Crime is caused by the individual
Argument1 of 3›: The Psychodynamic Theory of crime

The Psychodynamic Theory of crime describes Sigmund Freud's approach to psychology and puts this approach in the perspective of crime. This theory utilizes Freud's Id, ego, and superego and states that crime must be related to an imbalance in one or more of these.

The argument

The Psychodynamic Theory of crime is based off of Sigmund Freud’s ideas of the id, ego, and superego. Freud believed that these forces existed in all humans, and that the id represented human’s most base desires and impulses, the superego represents morality, and that the ego was the understanding of societal norms. In this theory, either conflict between these three forces, or an imbalance between them could cause delinquent and deviant behavior in a person.

Premises

[P1]According to Freud, the human psyche is composed of three forces: the id (base impulses), the superego (morality), and the ego (understanding of social norms). [P2] When these internal forces conflict or fall out of balance within an individual, deviant and delinquent behavior results. [C] Therefore, crime is caused by the individual, arising from internal psychodynamic imbalances rather than external factors.

Counter-arguments

Many critics of the psychodynamic theory point to its near impossibility to research or test in a quantitative manner. Many people also point out it's lack of effectiveness in understanding how to stop crime because it is such a subjective process that really can only tell why a crime occurs after the crime has already occurred.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The tripartite model is a theoretical construct rather than an observed structure. Id, ego and superego cannot be measured independently of the behaviour they are invoked to explain, so the premise supplies a vocabulary rather than a finding. [Rejecting P2] Because any offence can be redescribed after the fact as an imbalance among the three forces, the claim is unfalsifiable: it accommodates every case and predicts none, which is why it yields so little guidance on preventing crime.