ABSTRACT
Traditional religious and spiritual texts offer a surprising wealth of relevant theoretical and practical knowledge about human behavior. This wellspring may contribute significantly to expanding our current body of knowledge in the social sciences, and criminology in particular. In Jewish religious texts, specifically by Maimonides, we can find profound analyses of human traits and guidelines for a normative way of life. Among other things, modern criminological literature attempts to link certain character traits and divergent behaviors. Using the hermeneutic phenomenological approach, this present study analyzed Maimonidean writings, mainly Laws of Human Dispositions, in order to understand Moses ben Maimon (1138-1204) and his view of character traits. The analysis yielded four themes: (1) Human personality between nature and nurture; (2) The complexity of human personality, imbalance and criminality; (3) Extremism as a way to achieve balance; and (4) The Middle Way, flexibility and common sense. These themes can serve therapeutic purposes, as well as inform a rehabilitation model. Grounded in a theoretical rationale about the nature of humans, this model is designed to direct individuals to balance their traits by self-reflection and constant practice of the Middle Way. The article concludes by proposing that implementing this model may promote normative behavior and thus contribute to rehabilitating offenders.
ABSTRACT
This study addresses the process experienced by youth who started out as volunteering beneficiaries in treatment settings and became volunteers for at-risk youth themselves. Using the phenomenological approach, the study included 10 Israeli interviewees aged 20 to 30 who were regular volunteers. The findings suggested three themes related to the process experienced by the volunteers: (1) perceived altruism-the altruism attributed to the volunteers who had benefited the participants as youths; (2) the identity transformation from beneficiary to benefactor; and (3) acquired altruism-the acquisition of that trait by the participants. Applying the principles of positive criminology, this study shows how attributing altruism to the behavior of the volunteer can serve as fertile ground for acquiring altruism oneself, in a process that eventually results in volunteering for the benefit of others.
ABSTRACT
Religion and spiritual traditions entail vast wisdom and knowledge which have proved their productivity in achieving criminal rehabilitation, crime desistance, and crime prevention. Unfortunately, the literature on their role is relatively scarce and was not, until recently, regarded as part of mainstream criminology. This study used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach in which 39 participants were interviewed and many of the religious scriptures selected at their recommendation were analyzed. The findings reveal three central and unique themes that deal with the purpose of creation, human nature, and the question of free will. Through these premises, this study suggests that Spiritual Jewish criminology, a faith-based theory stemming from Jewish scriptures, offers a universal paradigm that explains a person's life as a spiritual journey, completed according to the Pyramid Model. The pyramid is built on two axes that describe a person's desirable movement: the first ranges from egocentrism to altrocentrism, while the second ranges from materialism to the spiritual. The study's discussion deals with the Pyramid Model's ability to explain the causes of delinquency, the onset of a criminal career, and the way out of this criminal world through treatment and rehabilitation.
