THE MODALITIES OF PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF OFFENDERS (DELINQUENTS) AND THEIR SOCIAL ADAPTED (LAW-ABIDING) EQUALS IN AGE

The article contains comparative analysis results of the features of psychosocial development of offenders (delinquents) and their socially adapted (law-abiding) equals in age. In the first phase, the research sample consisted of minors; who were held in a pre-trial detention centre; in the second phase, the sample comprised representatives of various social and age groups of the Ukrainian society (pupils of secondary schools and students of vocational schools, children deprived of parental care, cadets, high-school students, students-members of Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, adult convicts serving sentences in penitentiaries). The article looks into the problem areas of the juvenile offenders' personalities (minors delinquents). It has been shown that suspect and convicted adolescents (juveniles) who are held in pre-trial detention centres for minors have the following personality psychosocial development features: frustration, emotional instability, heightened anxiety, negative self-appraisal, impulsiveness, subjective ill-being, negative attitude towards meaningful environment, egocentric mindset, distrust of the world, insufficient self-control, social interaction problems, significant detachment from social values. The use of the author's questionnaire (PDA) has shown that those features cause problems for solving age-related issues and contradictions of the psychosocial development process during growing up. Juvenile delinquents are focused, in a biased way, on the pursuit of superiority over others at the expense of social interest (individualism); on the compliance of their qualities with conventional values shared by other people, which prevents them from realizing a self-actualization trend (dependence); on the attitude towards oneself as being dependent on external circumstances and other people, which hampers the possibility of self-determination and control of their own lives (fatalism).