Introduction Criminology is the science designed for crime investigation which is carried out through understanding the personality of the criminal or the factors that can form such a personality. As defined by the famous American criminologist Edwin H. Sutherland in 1974, criminology is all about “delinquency and crime as social phenomena” (Libet, Freeman, Sutherland, 2000, p. 120). If social phenomena are considered, then naturally human beings become involved in criminological processes as subjects and objects of investigations. Numerous scholars have developed their theories of criminology that is often based on various foundations but focus on the same point, i. e. the consideration of crime in all its manifestations as the socially conditioned and socially framed phenomenon. Accordingly, this paper considers three of the variety of criminological theories that view crime from the sociological and psychological perspectives. Rosenfeld & Messner; Merton; Durkheim The first theory under consideration is the so-called Institutional Anomie theory, also referred to as the American Dream theory, coined by Rosenfeld and Messner. The interesting point about this theory is its lineage, as Rosenfeld and Messner integrated and modified the sociological views of such prominent scholars as Durkheim and Merton. In more detail, the original theory of the three is Durkheim’s sociology of anomie, which argues that the roots of crime can be observed in institutional deregulation that results in the society’s inability to provide people with firm and strong values (Bernburg, 2002, p. 729; Durkheim, 1982, p. 118). Merton bases his theory on Durkheim’s views but modifies them to argue about the presence of the societal standards and means of creating values, but the lack of norms, i. e. the so-called “normlessness” of the society as an institution that leads to the appearance of crime (Merton, 1938, p. 673). Being a result of Durkheim’s and Merton’s theories’ integration, the Institutional Anomie theory by Rosenfeld and Messner argues about the dominance of goals over the ways of their achievement and claims the American Dream to develop the cult of achievement in people without any considerable attention to the morality and reasonableness of the means of their achievement (Bernburg, 2002, pp. 731 – 732). Thus, Rosenfeld and Messner consider the large-scale social factors of crime appearance and explain the phenomena of crime and criminalization by their theory. Accordingly, Rosenfeld and Messner’s theory derived from the sociological views by Durkheim and further Merton can be used for the analysis of the myth that mental illness causes crime (Bohm and Walker, 2006, Section 1.2). Thus, according to Bohm and Walker (2006), there is a myth in society that the bulk of the violent and dangerous criminals are mentally ill and that mental illness can be viewed as a crime-provoking factor. However, using Rosenfeld and Messner’s Institutional Anomie theory this myth can be easily shattered as the disintegration of the whole society, not the particular mental illness is viewed by reputable scholars as the major crime developing factor. It is the sociological lineage of Durkheim – Merton – Rosenfeld and Messner’s theory that allows making such comprehensive conclusions. Akers; Cloward & Ohlin; Sutherland & Mead Nevertheless, there is a theory in criminology that considers the role of the social and ps