Chapter 1 + 2 Flashcards
Forensic Psychology
An interdisciplinary branch of psychology that involves the application and production of psychological knowledge to problems, issues, and circumstances in the civil and criminal justice systems.
First Branch: Research
Applying psychology to understanding criminal/legal behavior
How do you reduce crime? Can you appraise risk and dangerousness? Can you help reform and help people make changes?
Second Branch: Cases
Expert testimony, judge, eyewitness testimony, civil suits
What are the two areas of the legal system
Civil and Criminal
What is a civil law?
private law; disputes between private parties. Does not involve a violation of the Criminal Code
Example: renovations done in house, doesn’t like the work, doesn’t want to pay, contractor sues, etc…
What is criminal law?
public law; the government enforces the rights and interests of the public; involves a violation of the Criminal Code
Maintain justice, support victim rights, avoid victimization
What is correctional or criminal justice psychology
The “criminal” prong of forensic psychology
Study of the psychological causes and correlates of criminal behavior
Applications of this psychological knowledge to offenders in justice settings
Definition of Criminal Behavior
“an intentional act in the violation of the criminal law committed without defense or excuse, and penalized by the justice system as a summary conviction or indictable offense”
Summary conviction
minor offense
Indictable offense
major offense
Hybrid offense
a mix of a summary and indictable offence (a theft in which someone was harmed)
Criminal Behaviour Criteria
1) Behavior must be intentional - without defense or excuse
2) Involves the violation of criminal code
3) Person must be able to discern right from wrong to appreciate that the act was illegal
Sociological Conceptions of Crime
Emphases placed on demographic and group correlates of crime (SAUCER).
Sex, age, urbanity, class, ethnicity, religion
Groups of society as a whole and how they influence criminal activity
* e.g., unequal power distribution in society
Examples of sociologist aspects involved in crime risk factors
Young people commit more crime
Crime can be associated with the above factors
Poverty - can be a risk factor for offense - a catalyst for criminal behaviour - does not CAUSE criminal behavior - needs other variables
Psychologist Conceptions of Crime
Emphases placed on individual differences in variables that contribute to criminal conduct
E.g., antisocial attitudes and values, negative peers, etc.
Example of psychological vs sociological conceptions of crime
What makes someone drive recklessly?
Society’s norms - not enough rules, etc. - sociology
OR
Reckless personality - psychology
Big Four
History of antisocial behaviour
Antisocial personality pattern
antisocial attitudes
antisocial associates
history of antisocial attitudes
being reckless on the road, committing crime, etc
Best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour
Prison is a deterrent for low risk behaviour
Antiosocial personality pattern
Antisocial personality disorder vs psychopathy
Prone to getting in fights, deceitful, etc
sntisocial attitudes
Not having values and morals in desperate situations- no impulse control - think about stealing money example
antisocial associates
People who associations with people who commit crime
Big 8
History of antisocial behaviour
Antisocial personality pattern
antisocial attitudes
antisocial associates
family/martial
employment/education
leisure/recreation
substance abuse
employment and education
can be a big risk too along with the big Four
Do they have a higher education ? A purpose relating to work or school?
lesiure and recreation
involved past time
substance abuse
Drug and alcohol use - trafficking trade
Can be inhibitor that unleashes attitude
Chemical or psychical
Personal Interpersonal Comuunity Reinforcement Model
The personal, interpersonal, and community-reinforcement (PIC-R) perspective on deviant behavior considers factors which actively encourage as well as discourage deviant activity, using knowledge from life and the social sciences. It combines social learning theory and personality theory - situational, personal, interpersonal, and community to explain what motivates or discourves someone to commit crime
General Personality and Cognitive Social Learning theory of criminal behaviour
The theory suggests that humans learn behaviors by observing others and choosing which behaviors to imitate. Behaviors that are rewarded are more likely to be repeated, whereas behaviors that are punished are less likely to be repeated.
correctional officer
guard offenders and detainees and maintain order in correctional institutions and other places of detention.
parole and probation officer
A probation or parole officer is an official appointed or sworn to investigate, report on, and supervise the conduct of convicted offenders on probation or those released from incarceration to community supervision such as parole.
psychiatry nurses
provides counselling or therapy
professor
research/teaching OR clinical training component
government - admin
cheif of psych department
allied health professions
forensic nursing, social work, addictions
psychological understanding of criminal behaviour is interested in…
intra-individual factors (individual across time)
inter-individual factors (different individuals)
forensic psychology vs correctional psychology
clinical psych in the legal system vs more crime related issues
Where does knowledge about crime rates come from
official police reports, unofficial surveys, crime prevalance rate, crime funnel, crime severity index
Is crime increasing in Canada
increasing 1992-95
decrasing to 2015
increasing to 2019
decreaing to 2020
covid affect on crime rates
IPV and hate crimes increase
property and gun violence decreased
child pornso increased
domestic disturbance increased
incidence rate
reflect the number of criminal incidents reported to police as a function of the population
crime prevelance rate
proportion of a population found to be involved in crime - 5301/100,000
length of sentence
47% last 1 month
men longer than women
sentence time also relates to how much correctional behaviour can be learnt
crime funnel
how many people eventually go to prision following a police reported criminal incident
- a very small percentage
crime severity index
measures police reported crime in canada
tracks change in volume of a crime and its relative seriousness VS just counting the number of reported sentence - both end up being same rate
accounts for the weight of a crime
how is a crime weighed according to the crime severity index
incarceration rate + average length of sentence
updates every 5 years
standardized at 0
nature of police reported crime
24 non violent 76 violent - 2020
- common assault
impaired driving
theft
youth - failure to comply with order
only 0.2% homicide
legal definiton of crime
prohibited and punishable by state
moral defnition of crime
violation of religion and punishable by God
social definiton of crime
violation of norms and punishable by community
psych definiton of crime
rewarding to the prepetator and harmful to others
crime definiton
intentional behaviour that violates a criminal code, intentional in that it did not occur accidentally without justification or excuse
what is crime
diff defintions/tolerance = diff rates f=of crime across countries
factors used to describe crime
motivation
politics
context
oppurtunity
social convention
variation of crime across provinces
North + West = more crime
overrepersentation of Indigenous people - northwest territories
crime rates by gender or race
only compiled crime statistice as a function of gender nOT race
internatoinal context of crime
Canada is lower than US but above average in western and european countries
cost of crime
42.4 billion - 1998
emotional loss, trauma, etc
administration of criminal sanctions in canada
< 2 years - provincial + youth who are awaiting trial
> 2 years 0 federal - if parole is revoked they will return
sex crimes - long term offender
crime victimization surveys
some is unreported - good way to check crime rates
every 5 years
GPCSL
theory of crime associated with learning - takes into account for historical (past, attitudes, etc) and immediate (personal, community, etc.) which effects decision to engage in criminal behaviour
Methodology used in assesing crime and recidivism
Metanalysis, randomized control designs, longitducal research, cross sectional
Metanalysis
results of individual studies to develop one average effect
all studies are not weighted equally
reports a weighted average
Effect Sizes
indicating the degree of the relationship between 2 variables - tells us how different 2 variables are which and shows how significant they’re relationship is
what’s the difference between t-test/f-test and effect sizes?
tests show you groups of difference but doesn’t tell us how different they are while effect sizes do answer that
which effect size process to use when you have 2 dichotomous variables
phi correlation/odds ratio
which effect size process to use when you have 1 continous and 1 dichotomous variable
AOC in ROC analysees, Cohens D, correlation B, coefficent from logistic regration
How to measure predictive accuracy
Reciever Operating Characteristic (ROC) - accuracy of risk assesment by testing false and true positive across decision thresholds
How does ROC work
1) for each possible cut off value - one can plot the fake positive rate (x axis) as a function of the true positive rate
2) measure the AUC - overall measure of accuracy
AUC guidelines
- ranges from .50 (change accuracy) - 100 (perfect accuracy)
- ex: 0.80 = 80% chance a randomly selected recidivist will have a higher risk score than a randomly selected non recidivist
anything bigger than 80% is good
distal causes of crime
historical
proximal causes of crime
immediate
when is a cross sectional study used
when we cannot figure out which variable comes first so we refer to the variable as a correlate
example: interviewing prisoners to see if they have depression
when are longitudinal studies used
whether the correlate is also a risk factor - depression has to preced crime to be a risk factor - and has to be significant and positive
- but not causal factors
randomized control designs
determine causality
- confirmed by meta analysis
- strongest effect sizes
central 8 - tentative causal factors
1 static risk factor is
history of criminal past - since history cannot be changes through intervention
7 dynamic risk factors/criminogenic needs
can be reduced through interventionw
what does not predict crime
- persona/emotional distress
- low self esteem
- major mental health disorder
- physical health
- fear of punishment
- low intelligence
- socioeconomic status of origin
- seriousness of the current offence
- dynamic
- can change by treatment
risk assesment
assesing a justice impacted person’s risk to offend
what does a risk assesment included
- combinaton of statis, dynamic, and protective risk factirs
protective factors
positive attributes that a person has that reduces reoffending even if more risk factors are present
specific responsivity factors
additional facilitators and barriers
RNR - risk need responsivity
successful rehab framworks
more risk to offend + more program hours = more monitoring
prioritize crimnogenic needs
GPR and SPRG
general response principle
match learning styles of prisones
specific response principle
tailor rehab to prisoners brain in terms of different learning styles
inhibition
a lack of regulatory control over voluntary behaviour - immediate situation factors
behaviour adaptation
innate nature gene approach - did defending honour increase reproductive success?
examples of biological explanations for crime
twin studies, neurotransmitter, genome, brain imaging, diet, toxins, pregnancy, hormones, psychophysiology
examples of evolutinary explanations for crime
conflict over resources, mating, offspring, life history, evolution of sexual coercion, frequency dependence selection, male to male competition, parental investment, mating effort
Cesare Lombroso
father of criminology - distinctive physical features
Charles Darwin
natural selection
Galton
eugenics - discouraging reproduction of those who have bad traits
What makes a strong theory
1) parsimonious
2) identifies.causal mechanisms, mediators, moderators,
3) is testable and falsifiable
4) based on empirical data and can be modified cus of new data
5) has interdisciplinary compatibility
6) respect to gender ethinicity culture etc
twin studies
help examine genetics and seperate genetic and enviroment
two types of adoption studies
parent-offspring
sibling-offspring
parent-offspring adoption studies
correlations are compared between adopters/adoptees and biological parents and kids; if biological has higher correlation mean genetics contributes more
sibling-offspring
concordance is compared of siblings vs adoptive siblings
MAOA gene
breaks down neurotransmitters - seratonin, norepinephrine, dopamine
low activity or high is a result of polymorphism
variance in antisocial behaviour
depends most on heritability, then on unshared enviroment and least on shared enviroment
gene-crime link
not direct - certain factors that predispose you to crime (impulsivity)
gene-enviroment link
low MAOA activity - prone to stressors = child maltreatment
testosterone and aggreson
high levels of testosterone have been linked with being prone to aggresion and antisocial sttitudes
neurotransmitter and crime
malfunctoning seratonin systems = impulsivity, irritability, and aggression
which two theories support antisociality and low levels of autonomic arousal
1) fearlessness theory
2) stimulation-seeking theory
stimulatoin seeking theory
some individuals have low arousal - seek stimulation and then they go express antisocial attitudes
psychophysiology and crime
- low ;levels of autonomic arousal and antisocially
why?
brain imaging and crime
functional and structural impairments to the frotnal lobe = antisocial attitudes
fearlessness theory
some individuals do not experience much fear when stressed - antisocial
other biological considerations
- hypoglycemia - aggression
- lead - criminal arrests
- anabolic- androgenic steroid - increase aggression
- drugs/alcohol - aggresoin
- fetal alcohol spectrum disorder
life history theory
argues that natural selection favours allocation strategies that, on average, optimize
adaptive phenotypic plasticity
the ability of a genotype to express phenotypes for improved ecological performance when exposed to different local environments
two life history pathways
short lifespand vs long life span
short life span history pathway
when life is deemed short - our psych will lea us towards riskeier activities that are more likely to attract a mate
long life span history pathway
prioritize future rewards and will take time to gather resources delay reproduction and prioritize parental investment
preperation hypothesis
females have direct genital responses to any sexual activity as a protective measure to reduce infection and injurt during any sexual intercourse
first line of evidence in support of psychopathy as an adaptive life history
mere existence of psychpathic life behaviour in the animal world
second line of evidence in support of psychopathy as an adaptive life history
psychopathy is not a disfunction - manipulative traits can facilitate mating and resources
homicide and cri,e
homicide prepetrators - responding to percieved reputational or status threats
may improve reproductive fitness = Genghis khan multiple wives
provincial justice system
- operated by ministry of corrections or justice
- sentences < 2 years duration
- short custody/ and or periods of probation
- large number of remands - waiting for trial/hearing
responsibility of province
federal system
- correctional service of canada - PA, halfway houses
- 2 or more years duration including life sentences
- mechanism of preventative detention and condition release - dangerous offender status
- parole board of canada release decision making body
- prisons and regional treatment facilities
- contact sex offences
- most people released after 2/3 of their sentence
canada rate of crime
106/100,000 or 1/1000
100,000 in total
2/3 in custody and 1/3 in community
What are the sources of counting crime
- UCR - uniform crime reports
- victimization surveys
- self-report studies
uniform crime reports
- most commonly used measure of crime statistics
- data sent in to canadian centre for justice statistics
- criminal justice system acts a funnel
- reported crime substantiated by police
- information used by policy makers researchers
Issues influencing accuracy of UCR
1) most serious offense MSO rule - violent offence takes precedence - most serious offence
2) multiple property crimes - only recorded as a single offense
3) police reporting issues - discretion involved - decisions are shaped by public perception and concerns
When did crime peak
1992
which crime is the most prominent in the sask
property crime
when did the stability of crime start in canada
in the past 5 years
roberry
early 2000 peaked dropped off the
major assault
early 2000s peak - dropped off then peaked during 2016-2017
homicide
very low - 1.8/2.0/100,000
drug offences
relatively stable - cannabis dropped off during 2016
breaking and entering
declined
theft 5000>
declined
shoplifting
decline
what is most weighted on the crime severity index
murder of 1st and 2nd degree
groups of CSU
group 1: murder, group two: manslaughter, group 3: disturbing peace
difference between group 1 and group 2
intention
general and violent crime severity index rate in prarie’s
decrease - uptick in late 2000’s - stabilize
victimization survey results from 2019
1 in 5 canadians impacted by 1 of 8 categories of crime
most incidents nonviolent in nature (69%)
incidents report rate
29% of all incidents reported police
only 6% of sexual assaults reported
50% of robbery, MV theft, B&E
violent victimization reported by gener
- 5 times the rate for women self reporting sexual assault
robber, physical assault, total violent victimization = no difference
self reported victimization by age group
younger people more impacted by crime
victimization by province per 1000 canadians
saskatchewan has 200/1000 more household crime than violent
82/100 around national average
steps of scientific investigation
1) formulating a hypothesis
2) selecting a method and designing the study
3) data collection
4) analyzing the results and drawing conclusions
5) reporting the finding
hypothesis
an educated guess or testeable prediction made about the relationship between two or more variables
variable
any events, conditions, behaviours, etc that are measures and controlled in a study
research method
a set of empirical observations and measurements that are taken to examine the association among variables in study
- 5 basic research methods
what is used to collect recidivism data
CPIC records
data collection measurements
questionnaires, interviews, behavioural observations, psych tests, physiological measurements, archival records, collateral reports, and surveys
descriptive analyses
set of numerical used to describe or summarize data
examples of descriptive analyses
mean, median, mode, standard deviation - extend to which people differ
inferential analyses
process of examining the inferences made about population parameters from sample statistics in order to evaluate the truth or falsity of your hypothesis
examples of inferential statistics
correlation, t-test, ROC, regression, ANOVA
univariant statistics
single dependent variable
multivariant statistics
multiple dependent variables
percent different in convictions is significant if
p < .05
basic research methods
experimental, correlational, case study, survey, naturalistic observation, meta analysis
experimental design
looking for causes
two or more conditions
independent variables are manipulated
predictable change in another variable
random assignment
confounding variable
advantages of experimental design
cause and effect
random assignment
disadvantages of experimental design
may not be generalizable
cannot answer all problems/questions
confounding variable
artificiality
confounding variable
variable other than IV that unless controlled can influence DV - controlled in set up statistics
artificiality
the more control you have or a really sheltered lab enviromentally can create a limit to it’s implications
correlational (regression) design
examining without manipulation the relationship between two variables
correlation
to obtain a statistic expressing the degree of relationship between 2 variables
regression
to allow prediction of one variable (criterion variable) on the basis of knowledge about another variable
predictor variable
variable from which the prediction is made
criterion variable
variable to be predicted
advantages of correlational design
estimate the direction of a relationship without manipulating any variable
used to research variables that cannot be manipulated
disadvantages of correlational design
cannot establish cause and effect
case study
in depth investigation focusing on a single individual
examples of case study
interview, observation, examination of records, and psych testing
advantages of case study
permit detailed examination
disadvantages of case study
may not be generalizable
may be subjective
mercy at the person’s perspective
survey
administering questionnair or structured interview designed to gather info about specific aspects of a participant’s behaviour
advantages of a survey
can obtain large and repersentative samples
quick and easy
can gather info on behaviours that are difficult to observe
disadvantages of a survey
may not fill out survey
may not understand questions
data might be unreliable
no random sampling
naturalistic observation
objectively obserce, in a systematic and non interfering manner the behaviour of a group of individuals within their natural enviroment
participant observation
researcher joins, without interfering in with the activities of the individual or group being observed
advantages of a naturalistic observation
could be a starting point
minimizes artificiality
disadvantages of naturalistic observation
lack of control over variables
prone to bias and distortion
can be difficult to remain unobtrusive
meta analysis
a collecton of stydies about a phenomenon are combined quantitatively to generate an aggregate finding termed an effect size
advantages of meta anaylsis
excellent way to synthesize large number of research results
effect sizes efficient and informative statistic
rigorous
mean
the arthimetic average of a group of scores
area under the curve
index of predictive accuracy of binary events
disadvantages of meta analysis
quality of studies comes from studies
research judgement in coding and aggregating effect sizes
t test for independent means
comparing the means from two separate groups of participants
f-test (analysis of variance)
similar to t-test for multiple IVs and or/multiple levels of an IV (culture of honour)
correlation
the manner in which 2 phenomena are statistically (usually linearly) associated
2 types of t-tests
between subjects design (independent mean comparison)
within subject design (dependent mean comparison)
between subjects design (independent mean comparison)
comparing the averages of two completely seperate groups/variables (psychopathic vs non psychopathic)
within subject design (dependent mean comparison)
general subject group mean comparison - comparing the risk score on a dynamic measure at pretreatment and post treatment
pearson correlation
a mathematical index of the strength of the association between two variables
point biserial
one variable continous (PCL score range) and one binary variable ( reoffend yes or no)
phi correlation
two binary variables
ROC Curve Analysis
Percent probability of a radonmly selected reoffender will reoffend compared to a randomly selected non reoffender -
small effect size
0.56
medium effect size
0.64
large effect size
0.71
