One placement does not make a reading, always look for repeating patterns. Judging someone’s nature from the horoscope is a very personal thing. You cannot make sweeping statements from one single placement ever.

In your practice you will generally not get criminals as clients. And this post is not a study on criminals. This is to help you work with your clients. You might notice some charts with tendencies for criminal behaviour. If you get such charts especially for marriage matching you should delve deeper. If a person has violent tendencies, the marriage matching should be rejected as they can later find an outlet on the spouse/children and result in marital abuse. These tendencies in the birth chart will be triggered in the appropriate Dasha periods and typical transits. Or when deep events like marriage occur where two persons karma merge. Till then these tendencies may remain silent under the surface so the role of an astrologer is important. (In some castes, the boy’s family does not give his birth details to the girl’s family. Only the boys’ family matches the charts. This in my opinion is very dangerous for the girls. Girls are more vulnerable after marriage and an arranged match without checking his horoscope is very risky, you never know what you are marrying into! Both girl’s and boy’s families should get the matching done with their own astrologers.)

And if you have such patterns in your own chart then do self-introspect. How do you behave with others? How do others feel about you? Are you needlessly cruel? Jyotish is primarily a route to self-discovery, so use it in full. (And if you are a victim to some such person, do not endure this abuse, find help.)

• Check the Birth chart D-1 for the actual physical personality and the environment, the actual physical stuff which can occur in life.
• Check the Moon chart for the emotional and psychological context.
• If you have the exact birth time available, check the Navamsha D-9 chart. This gives the philosophy and the foundation of a person’s life, mind and body. The D-9 is the complete potential and the D-1 is the actually expressed part of it. The D-1 and the D-9 both will show the tendencies.
  • The D-9 is considered strong if, the first house is occupied by the same sign in both D-1 and D-9. The planets from the D-1 occupy the same signs in the D-9. Planets get exalted in the D-9. Planets occupy the Pushkar navamsha. Planets occupy their own signs in the D-9 or their friends signs. The D-1 signs of the 6^th, 8^th 12^th houses should ideally remain vacant in the D-9 etc.
  • Eg a beautifully exalted Sun/Aries in the 10^th house/dig-bala if becomes debilitated/Libra and in the 12^th house/maran-karak sthan in the Navamsha, this person will have an inner high sense of deep selfishness/ cruelty and outer sense of regal superiority. So a superficial beautiful placement in the D-1 is essentially quite bad at the D-9 core.

The Sun defines the self-ego. And self-ego leads to intentions and actions. For criminal tendencies to exist there has to be some problem with the birth Sun. Sun is a malefic in the first place. A sense of mania, a confidence that one can get away with crime requires the Sun be active in his malefic role. This can mean the Sun is debilitated or aspected by other malefics or in a watery signs. A false sense of superiority and entitlement can lead to behaviour which can be considered criminal. Look for patterns. There should be at least 3 or more strong corroborating placements for coming to conclusions about ‘criminality’. In fact the quality of the entire chart as a whole will be very low. The two luminaries, Sun and the Moon are the ‘eyes’ of the chart. If these both are unable to give auspicious results, the quality of the horoscope is lowered substantially.

Study the Moon, his position in the chart. What kind of a mentality does he indicate, the environment of his early life, the role of the mother in shaping the mind, the early life? Culture, customs and the environment in which the Mind developed are very important indicators. So if your client is from a culture where wives are beaten routinely he will not consider this to be criminal activity. If the Moon is in the 6^th, 8^th or 12^th, the regular houses of turmoil and with/ aspected by malefics there will be some deviations in the mental frame. The 3^rd house is strange, it signifies courage, but if afflicted by malefics can give the worst mentality/ actions. If the Moon is in the 3^rd house analyse him properly. Moon in a bad place indicates a damaged mind and a strange sense of emotional expectations. The power of the internal conscience is also indicated by the Moon. He is also impulses and the reaction to impulses. Check the influences on the Moon.

The birth Moon chart. How do you know if someone is enjoying what he is doing? If someone enjoys being cruel, no amount of psychological counselling is going to help the situation. Look in to the houses counted 3^rd, 6^th, 8^th  and 12^th from the birth Moon, there should not be any malefic planets placed here. If these houses are occupied by Rahu, Saturn, Sun, Ketu, Mars then this person has typical mindset which will not stop at being cruel, aggressive and unfeeling of others. You cannot counsel this person to be kind. The mind is not kind, gentle, loving, caring etc, finer feelings are low. This does not necessarily mean that it is a criminal Mind, this is just one pattern. There should be some auspicious planet aspecting or in conjunction with the Moon, giving him emotional support. An isolated Moon or a Moon in inimical patterns is very vulnerable. It is very easy to incite such person into violence. (Or conversely he might be a victim of emotional abuse). He can hit out if emotionally under stress and he will feel justified in doing so. Jupiter with Moon is generally considered to be a blanket auspicious thing, but do check out if Jupiter is a functional malefic for that ascendant sign first.

Mercury is the thought process, the analytical mind. If Mercury is influenced by malefics then there may be illogical thought processes which may indicate criminal thought patterns. Most commonly Mercury is seen with Sun as it is closest to it. We all need a healthy bit of self-obsession to carry on in life. Self-focus allows us to protect our self-interests and avoid being cheated by others. But excessive self-obsession can lead to other problems, where you do not consider the other’s view point at all. Eg if a Mercury is influenced by a spoilt Sun (my example in the Navamsha above) then such a person refuses to consider other’s view points and believes his own perceptions and mental processes to be always correct. A Mercury afflicted by other malefics can also indicate this tendency. He is combust and retrograde more often than the others planets which can indicate a different way of thinking etc.

Venus is generally not associated with criminal mindsets. But if he is influenced by malefics or debilitated or with a powerfully self-centred Sun then he will not grant enjoyable one-one partnerships. There will be no fairness, no pleasure and no equality in your marriage, business (or spiritual practice). If you consistently dominate and suppress your spouse, children, etc this is not a good thing for them. You will be perceived as an aggressor or an abuser by people who are close to you. However an auspicious aspect of Venus, where Venus himself is not affected by malefics can help the situation.

Criminals are known to be cruel and disconnected from finer emotions. They remain unmoved at the plight and pain of others. A person who again and again hurts an animal or a human who is clearly feeling/ expressing pain would be a ‘criminal’ mind-set. The victims do plead with the aggressor to stop but the still person continues his hurtful actions. This sort of nature would indicate Mars to be in his fully malefic role. Mars is both physical and psychological domination. His outgoing physical sign is Aries. And he dominates psychologically through his inward moving Scorpio sign. Scorpio especially can be quite strange. It is represented by the scorpion, who not only stings others but is said to sting its own self too. Mars if debilitated, in watery signs or in any way connected to Saturn or Rahu is a pattern which can predispose towards violence. (ie Saturn aspected by Mars, Mars in the same trikon as Rahu etc. Always look for patterns.)

Manglik combination is considered dangerous for this very reason. The passionate, vengeful, intense, drilling, fiery Martian energy needs to be directed away from the spouse/children, but this often does not happen in real life and the aggression rips into the family life causing turmoil. We cannot call this behaviour outrightly ‘criminal’ but if there are more patterns and the person starts enjoying his aggression then yes it will be a criminal mindset. (I know someone with a debilitated Mars in ascendant, 8^th house Saturn, ie Saturn aspected by Mars. I have seen him tearing apart others auras with his energy/words! He knows what he is doing and does not feel bad about it)

Rahu is the North node of the Moon. He is the power of temptation, illusion, deception, desires, cheating, hiding, risk-taking, cruelty, rage, crimes, anti-social disruptive actions, immoral activities etc. He makes one unafraid of any type of repercussions, ie physical, emotional, spiritual. In your ‘suspect’ charts, analyse Rahu in depth. Any connection of Rahu with Mars needs to be examined. This person can literally be a ball of fire! But rage or deception by itself is not criminal, the other patterns should also exist where the person enjoys the act and also tends to repeat it again. If Rahu has some connection with Saturn then examine this too as this person can cleverly break the social, moral, etc boundaries.

Saturn is the planet of restrictions and lawful karmic action. But if such a Saturn is incapable of giving auspicious results he will make you immune to all reasonable controls on behaviour. This can be seen as actual violence, or you make others afraid of you, or you make them feel guilty and thus exploit them. You will derive strange satisfaction when you restrict others! This is a very typical nature of Saturn in his malefic form. If associated in any way with the 7th house he can suffocate all one-one relationships. The other person is driven away by the coldness and the forbidding nature of the Saturn. Saturn in Scorpio or in the 8th house or linked with Mars is not good.

Jupiter can help the situation if it is not too bad. But before putting too much reliance on Jupiter’s aspects check how much power does he have to give auspicious results. Is he a functional benefic or a functional malefic for that chart?

The lord of the 3^rd house and the power of the 3^rd house. This is a very important point that should be seen in detail. This is the way you choose to think and act. The 6^th 8th and 12th house lords are functional malefics and can cause inauspicious results. Look into the power of these houses for more pointers. 6th is action, 8th is trauma and catastrophic changes and 12th is all hidden things including isolation and incarceration.

However if the Ascendant lord, the Sun and the Moon in the birth chart are free of malefic influences, are auspicious and capable of giving favourable results then even if there are evil tendencies indicated by other patterns, these generally will not expressed in real life. Strong and auspicious Kendra houses, 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th houses in the birth chart are also very important as they grant stability and the ability to review, reconsider and revaluate actions. Note the power of the sign occupying the first house of the Navamsha chart, the planets placed in it and its owner planet, if these are auspicious then the personality is further strengthened. (But if there are malefics in this 1st house in the Navamsha, the core of the personality is not very good)

So to say that someone is a criminal is not so easy. Intention and action both have to exist. Mind and Body both have to inflict the hurt on the other person, again and again. The aggressor’s Will is affected, the moral courage to take the right stand is missing, faulty logic exists, selfishness is paramount, desire to gain at any cost is strong, a wish to dominate over others exists, possible harm to others is irrelevant and there is the physical or psychological power and courage to commit such acts repeatedly. The victim can be anyone, girlfriend/ boyfriend, sister, brother, husband/ wife, parents, children, friends, pets, animals. And the abuse can be emotional or physical or in any other form.

Finally, the tendencies of the birth Moon chart and the Navamsha chart should percolate and be evident in the birth chart D-1. And the triggers will be, as always, the current Dasha/transits.