Crim Flashcards
Biological explanation of crime:brain injury
Link between brain injury and offending.
William et al analyzed data from 196 inmates from UK prison, 60% recalled one or more youth head injuries.
Acquired brain injury (ABI) result from events like sports accident.
Brain not fully mature until mid 20s, cognitive abilities last develop.
ABI disrupt development.
Phineas Gage.
Biological explanation of crime:amygdala and aggre
Amygdala, small region in temporal lobe of cerebral cortex.
Fight or flight, memory, sleep and emotion.
Abnormality correlate with inc aggre.
Raine et al, reduced activity in amygdala.
Charles Whitman
Biological explanation of crime:XYY syndrome
1 in 1000.
Taller than average, low IQ, impulsive and behavioral difficulties.
Jacobs et al, chromosome survey of male patients in a hospital, XYY over represented prison population.
Gender and biological explanation
Williams et al, lack research on female offender and ABI, male more at risk of ABI.
XYY only affect male.
Biological explanation strengths
Fazel et al, examined link between traumatic brain injury and violent crime convictions, 8.8% experienced ABI and 3% in matched control group.
Inc awareness of brain injury in CJS, suggest should be viewed similar to mental health.
Weaknesses
Correlational.
Fail to consider environmental factors.
Complex relationship between amygdala and crime.
Researchers, meta analysis considered 50 years of evidence and see no link between XYY and offending, social factors may better explain the over representation in prison.
Personality and crime:extroversion and introversion
Extroverts crave excitement so likely to engage in dangerous behavior.
Can’t be conditioned easily.
Personality and crime:neuroticism and stability
Neurotic people are nervy and anxious, generals instability mean difficult to predict.
Typical criminal personality is extrovert neurotic.
Personality and crime:psychoticsm
Self-centered, cold and lack empathy.
Criminal type is characterized by a person who scores highly on all 3 dimensions.
Biological basis of personality
Personality trait can be explained by type of nervous system we inherit.
Constant need for excitement is caused by underactive nervous system, require unusually high levels of arousal.
Socialization process and personality
Socialization childhood determine if a person become law-abiding.
Extroverts, natural rewards seekers so less receptive to operant conditioning.
High neuroticism interferes with efficient learning so relate to difficulty taking on board social rules.
Make extrovert neurotics more likely to behave anti socially.
Gender and the sensation seeking
Linked to testosterone level
Biological explanation of crime strengths
Researchers studies 130 violent and 180 non violent male prisoners, found criminal thinking style with high EPN.
Raine et al, physiological measures participant aged 15 and related to later criminal status, those with criminal record 24 years later had a recorded more signs of under arousal in nervous system when aged 15.
Allow early crime prevention.
Weaknesses
Little evidence that EPQ is adequate measure, predict offending.
More than one type of criminal personality, consciousness and agreeableness.
Social explanations of crime
Labeling
Self fulfilling prophecy
Social learning (observational learning, vicarious reinforcement and role models)
Social explanations of crime strengths
Rosenthal and Jacobsen
Jahoda, Monday boys even tempered, Wednesday boys aggre and 3x likely.
Reduce neg effect of labeling, Braithwaite, label act not person.
Weaknesses
Researchers found baby faced boys more likely to be delinquent and involve in crime.
Most labeling studies based in educational setting.
Labeling theory, partial explanation
Cognitive interview
Report everything-encouraged to report every single detail.
Reinstate the context-asked to imagine all aspects of the crime scene.
Reverse the order-describe in different chronological order.
Change perspective-tell the event from someone else’s perspective.
Enhanced CI
Developments of original technique focused more on interactions between interviewer and interviewee. Report everything and reinstate context based on encoding specific principle (Tulving), when a memory for the event is first encoded, other important cues are stored along side, these triggers cues.
Reverse the order and change perspective are related to schema, makes it hard for witnesses to rely on schema and give expectations.
CI strengths
Geiselman et al showed participant a film of a violent crime and interviewed either using CI, standard interview or an interview using hypnosis, average number of correctly recalled facts for CI was 41, standard interview 29 and hypnosis 38.
Researchers found any CI element in isolation tend to be more effective in eliciting accurate info than standard interview.
Fisher, CI produce 46% more details and was 90% accurate than standard interviews.
Also works well with children, Holliday showed 4-5 and 9-10 a birthday party vid, interviewed using CI or standard next day, more accurate details using CI.
Weaknesses
May lead to inc of inaccurate info.
Geiselman et al lack ecological validity.
Time consuming.
Ethical interview
Preparation and planning-identify key objectives of the interview.
Engage and explain-active listening promote a rapport.
Account, clarification and challenge-open ended questions to elicit info.
Closure-give suspect the chance to ask any questions.
Evaluate-reflect on interviewers performance.
All interviews adopt PEACE model are recorded to maintain transparency and ensure guidelines are followed.
EI strengths
Produce high success rate.
Can improve society’s view of the police.
Weaknesses.
Require specialist training.
Should not entirely replace persuasive method eg Colin Stagg
What’s psychological formulation?
Explains why individual commit a crime and likelihood of reoffending
Stages of psychological formulation:offense analysis
Gain insight of motivation.
Forensics psychologist may refer to similar offenses.
Must relate specifically to the offender.
Identify reasons allow forensics psychologist to assess risk of reoffending and possible causes that can be removed or changed.
Stages of psychological formulation: Understanding the function of offending
Purpose serve for the individual.
Behaviorist and psychodynamic perspective.
Stages of psychological formulation: Application to treatment
Establish intervention based on the conclusion.
Rehabilitative program recommended that should reflect how the offending started in first place, risk of reoffending and how likely they are to stick to the program.
Treatment will then reassess and adopted based on the success.
Individual differences in psychological formulation
Criminal behavior depends on personal circumstances and factors that triggered so can’t be generalized. Forensics psychologist need to work with this uncertainty and change their approach when needed on each case
Psychological formulations strengths
Provide insight into complex offending cases, brings together many agencies and professionals.
Understand what causes offending helps to reduce reoffending.