MENTAL HEALTH AND CRIME: A CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOURAL REGULATION AND OFFENDING

This book presents a rigorous criminal psychology analysis of the relationship between mental health and crime, examining how behavioural regulation, emotional stability, fear management, impulse control, and reward evaluation shape criminal decision-making. Rather than treating mental health as a clinical or medical diagnosis, the work conceptualises mental health as a behavioural regulation system governing lawful conduct under stress. Crime is analysed as a psychologically intelligible outcome that emerges when mental health regulation deteriorates due to fear, trauma, anxiety, substance use, custodial deterioration, and systemic neglect. The book demonstrates how emotional dysregulation, distorted reward prediction, impaired impulse control, and fear-driven cognition increase susceptibility to offending without eliminating responsibility. Drawing from criminal psychology, behavioural science, neuroscience, law, and interdisciplinary systems analysis, the work examines crime across stages including pre-offending instability, criminal decision-making, custody-related mental deterioration, recidivism, and long-term crime persistence. Mental health stabilisation is presented as a core mechanism for crime prevention, operating alongside ethical accountability and legal enforcement. This publication is a conceptual and theoretical scholarly work intended strictly for academic, educational, and research purposes. It does not provide medical advice, psychiatric diagnosis, clinical treatment, legal counsel, or therapeutic intervention. The book does not oppose or undermine any government, judicial authority, or law enforcement institution. The work contributes to criminal psychology, criminology, mental health studies, law and justice, and interdisciplinary social sciences by offering a structured, non-ideological framework for understanding crime as a behavioural outcome shaped by psychological stability and systemic response.