AC3.1-Analyse situations of criminality Flashcards
Analyse these factors of a murderer: knocked unconscious multiple times leading to brain damage, ‘no good’ at school and exposed to violent behaviour, high testosterone levels.
knocked unconscious multiple times leading to brain damage: could have suffered damage to pre-frontal cortex, link to Raine et al PET scans which showed criminals were more likely to have brain damage, Phineas Gage.
‘no good’ at school and exposed to violent behaviour: self-fulfilling prophecy, he started to act the way he was believed to
high testosterone levels: biochemical factor which can make males more aggressive, could have extra Y chromosome.
Analyse this factor of a murderer: had damage to the ‘moral decision making’ part of his brain.
Abnormalities within the brain could lead to immoral decisions as seen by Phineas Gage whose personality completely changed after suffering brain damage.
Analyse the case of Nick Leeson who committed white collar crime: driven by profits, enjoyed dabbling in risky trading behaviour, losses led to collapse of Barings Bank.
Member of bourgeoisie: made vast profits for global bank, got away with criminal trading for long enough to make $827mil.
Marxism: differential law enforcement, working class more heavily policed than upper class so his crimes may have been ignored.
Eysencks personality test: he was a risk taker so would have been seen as an extravert, if coupled with neuroticism and/or psychoticism, this could have led to his criminal habits.
What are right realist explanations of ford pinto case?
For Ford, it would have been cheaper to continue producing the faulty car and pay compensation for any incidents rather than work to fix the defect ($11 per car, so $137 million overall for 12.5mil cars).
Rational decision that benefits outweigh costs.
What are marxist explanations of ford pinto case?
The owners of Ford/ the people selling the cars are members of the bourgeoisie and it would have been easier for them to commit this type of crime as they are fully familiar with rules and regulations and are trusted by society, so it would have been easier for them to conceal their crimes.
What are theories behind Enron corporation crimes? : illegal practices to boost share price (eg concealing debts) so price rose 1000% from 1990 to 2000, stakeholders only received 1/10 of what they lost.
Marxism: executives part of bourgeoisie so it was easier for them to commit white collar crime due to their high status in society, they aimed to boost the capitalist economy. Trusted by society as they gave to charity.
Right realism: For Enron, the benefits of attracting more investors outweighed the cost of their fraudulent records.
Freud’s psychodynamic theory: offenders did not have healthy balance, had more ‘Id’.
