The Effect Of Yoga On Mental Health And General Adjustment Of Women Criminals

INTRODUCTION THE PROBLEM UNDER INVESTIGATION There is hardly any society which is not beset with the problem of crime. It is a grave social problem faced by every society. Crime may be considered as an omission of an act which the law of the land expects the individual to do or commission of an act which it forbids to do. In the legal terms crime may be defined as any form of conduct which is declared to be socially harmful in a state and as such forbidden by law under pain of some punishment (Bhattacharya, 1992). In other words crime is intentional act or commission in violation of criminal law committed without defense or justification and sanctioned by the law as violation or misdemeanor. It is unpalatable truth that the crime is not only a fact of life but a way of life as well, since the bulk of human behavior described as criminal has been accepted as rationalized by many on grounds of expediency, necessity and compulsion. Hence it is understood that crime is an act forbidden by the law of the land varies from place to place. An act considered criminal in one place may not be some in another place. It is Barnes and Tecter (1944) who gave a definition for crime in the following words, "Crime is a form of antisocial behavior such an extent as to be forbidden by the statute" , so, crime is more of a legal term as it is mostly explained in terms of law. Crime can be defined in a number of ways. It can be considered any violation of law; or it may be defined as behavior thought deserving of punishment or it may be considered any act deviating from the demands of a given ethical system. One problem in attempting to isolate behavior into the category of "Criminal" is that almost any form of human behavior, given the appropriate historical content, can be defined as criminal (Mc Gee, 1977). In the face of these difficulties there is no overall agreement among sociologist and criminologists about what constitutes criminal behavior. But the most prominent definition of crime views crime as behavior which violates criminal law and is formally reported to law enforcement agencies (Weis and Henney, 1980). One can include at least three elements in a working definition of crime: I. The actor must violate the penal code either through omission or commission of an act. II. The actor must be assumed to have acted voluntarily. III. The kind and degree of social injury to the state must usually be specified. In today world, our life style is changing drastically leading to materialistic world. Society is chasing materialistic sense and losing emotional sense. These all changes leads to many psychological disorders i.e., depression, stress, anxiety and frustration etc. These changes in society affect women more. The topic of women and crime has recently developed into a broad field of research ,