Criminal behviour

Question 1

How does Sutherland (1949) describe gender roles in society?

Answer 1

He states that society encourages boys to be tough and strong while keeping girls sheltered and submissive, which gives boys more opportunity for crime

Question 2

What does Cohen (1955) say about gender role models?

Answer 2

Children, especially boys require a same sex role model to express their masculinity. Without a similar characteristics role model, boys often reject their mother to express their masculinity in gangs or peer groups, which leave them more vulnerable to crime.

Question 3

Describe how gender roles affect women in society

Answer 3

The patriarchal society makes it harder for women to succeed and gives them less chance to commit white collar crimes, with 5% of males in prison committing WCC and only 2.5% in women (Ministry of justice 2014)

Question 4

How does gender socialization influence children?

Answer 4

With separate bathrooms, clear differences in gender marketing and different sport opportunities in schools, children understand early on that the genders are not equal, which makes them act differently depending on the gender of a person, which plays into mother rejection and social control.

Question 5

What did Sutherland believe about differential association?

Answer 5

Sutherland believed you could predict whether someone would turn to crime based on the frequency, duration and intensity of their social contacts

Question 6

How are criminal attitudes learned?

Answer 6

An individual may be positively reinforced for criminal or deviant behaviour by associates with pro-criminal attitudes, or they may be negatively reinforced and turn to crime to avoid social rejection or isolation.

Question 7

What is vicarious reinforcement?

Answer 7

Leaning through others.

Question 8

Name 2 of Sutherlands differential association principles

Answer 8

1. Criminal behaviour is learned through communication of others
2. The process of learning criminal behaviour by association with criminal and anti-criminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning.
3. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of the legal codes as favourable or unfavourable. (i.e. learning to be for or against crime)

Question 9

What did Osborne & West (1979) find?

Answer 9

Found that where there is a father with a criminal conviction, 40% of the sons had committed a crime by age 18 compared to 13% of sons of non-criminal fathers.

Question 10

What did Akers et al (1979) find?

Answer 10

surveyed 2500 male and female adolescents in the US to investigate drinking and drug behaviour. Findings showed that the most important influence on this behaviour was peer association, reinforcement and imitation which all combined to account for 68% of marijuana use and 55% alcohol use

Question 11

Briefly describe Eysenck’s criminal personality theory

Answer 11

The theory that criminals have a particular personality type based on three disorders, neuroticism, psychotism and extraversion.

Question 12

What % of personality are inherited/biological (Eysenck?)

Answer 12

67%

Question 13

Explain extraversion

Answer 13

their nervous system is underactive or under aroused, so seek external stimulation to increase their biological arousal (introverts are innately over aroused so seek to reduce stimulation)

Question 14

Explain neuroticism

Answer 14

has a very reactive nervous system, primarily during fight or flight, so they react or get upset quite easily (The stable personality has an unreactive nervous system so they are calm under pressure) - Over-reactive to situations of threat

Question 15

Explain Psychoticism

Answer 15

has been related to higher levels of testosterone which men are more likely to have this dimension - Lack empathy, increased aggression

Question 16

What is a cognitive distortion?

Answer 16

an exaggerated or irrational thought pattern where what a person perceives does not represent reality​,
leading an offender to deny or rationalise their behaviour.

Question 17

What is hostile attribution bias?

Answer 17

Drawing a negative conclusion based on someone’s actions

Question 18

What is minimalization?

Answer 18

Under-exaggerating actions or a situation to down play the seriousness. e.g blame the victim

Question 19

What are Kohlbergs 6 levels of reasoning?

Answer 19

Preconventional level:
1. Avoiding punishment 
2. Aiming at reward
Conventional level:
3. Good boy/girl attitude
4. Loyalty to law and order
Postconventional level:
5. Justice and the spirit of the law
6. Universal principles of ethics

Question 20

At which two levels of Kohlbergs levels of reasoning are you more likely to commit crime?

Answer 20

1 and 2, pre-conventional, Individuals are more likely to break the law at these levels because they believe breaking the law is justified if the rewards outweigh the costs.

Question 21

Which two levels of Kohlbergs levels of reasoning are more likely to break the law to maintain a relationship or society?

Answer 21

3 and 4, conventional level, individuals at this level value relationships more than the law.

Question 22

How do cognitive explanations explain crime?

Answer 22

COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS that lead an offender to rationalise or deny their criminal behaviour;
HOSTILE ATTRIBUTION BIAS, where someone has a greater likelihood of thinking and assuming the worst and these negative interpretations then lead to more aggressive behaviour;
MINIMALIZATION, where the consequences of a situation/actions are under-exaggerated which reduces negative interpretations of behaviour before and/or after a crime has been committed.
LEVELS OF MORALITY, criminal behaviour will be mostly found in those who remain in the pre-conventional level of moral reasoning as they believe that breaking the law is justified if the rewards outweigh the costs.

Question 23

What is a transactional vice?

Answer 23

Being involved in victimless offences where there is a willing exchange of goods or services

Question 24

When does a behavior become criminal?

Answer 24

When it breaks the law, do not confuse deviance with criminality

Question 25

List Farr and Gibson’s (1990) criteria to categorize crime

Answer 25

Property

1. Property predatory crime (Burglary)
2. Property fraudulent crime (Fraud)

Violence

3. Interpersonal violence general (Murder)
4. Interpersonal violence sexual (Rape)

Victimless

5. Transactional vice (Prostitution)
6. Order disruption (Rioting)

Mundane
7. Folk/Mundane crime (Fishing with no license)

Question 26

What does This acronym stand for?

Perpetrators Violate Victims Merrily

Answer 26

Property Violence Victimless Mundane

Farr and Gibson’s 1990 types of crimes

Question 27

What does MAOA-L stand for?

Answer 27

Monoamine oxidase low (deficient)

this is also known as the warrior gene and causes build up of serotonin, norepinephrine and other neurotransmitters and has been associated with low intelligence and high impulse aggressive behavior

Question 28

How do genetics explain crime?

Answer 28

Diathesis + stressor = criminal behavior

Combinations include: High stressor + low vulnerability

High vulnerability + low stressor

Question 29

How can you combat criminal genes?

Answer 29

Epigenetics and nurture

Question 30

What are epigenetics?

Answer 30

Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence

Question 31

Explain the findings of Emil Coccaro et al (2007)

Answer 31

Coccaro found that the that the amygdala was overactive in IED (intermittent explosive disorder) patients when viewing angry faces, proving an association with the amygdala and anger processing and therefore criminality

Question 32

What is the amygdala?

Answer 32

A structure of grey matter located in the medial lobe and part of the limbic system, it has been associated with environment and threat assessment

Question 33

Describe fear conditioning and symptoms of dysfunction

Answer 33

Children learn through associating fear with punishment, if the amygdala is dysfunctional, they cannot correctly determine emotions and associate expression with punishment. This can result in an individual seeming fearless, overly aggressive and anti-social.

Question 34

Describe the research by Gao et al (2010)

Answer 34

Longitudinal study of 1795 participants, tested for fear conditioning at age 3, measured by sweating, 20 years later they found out the participants who became criminal, those who committed crimes had shown no fear conditioning when they were 3 and were effectively ‘fearless’. This shows a casual relationship with amygdala dysfunction and criminal behavior.