criminal offending 641 Flashcards
What is offending
Acts that injurious and prohibited by law and render the subject to intervention by justice professionals
= a learned behaviour (main point of the GPCSL)
Social, moral, psychological and legal aspects
What are theories of offending
early theories
societal factors
psychological/biological/cultural/psychodynamic
Classical school
Lombrosos
Strain
class/conflict
subcultural
labelling
biological
trait
radical behaviours
humanistic
siochiocultural
social learning
psychodynamic
Early Theories
- Classical School- all man as a calculating animal weighing up cost and benefits to crime
- Lombroso’s Atavism- some people are born criminal (biologically pre-disposed), distinctive facial features
Societal factors
● Strain: criminals are inventors not inherently criminal - using innovative means to meet conventional goals for needs which are blocked
● Class/Conflict: oppressed lower class rebelling against oppressive upper class
● Subcultural: conforming to the norms and values of criminal subculture (not as non-conforming to society)
● Labelling: after first offence you’re labelled as offender which makes more likely to act in accordance with the label (self-fulfilling prophecy)
● Differential Association: criminal behaviour learned, in interaction with others, behave in an immediate situation based on cognitive definitions of crime EG whether people around you support it or not)
Psychological
● biological impacts of things like testosterone, stress cortisol, hereditary impulsive, effect of substance use, emotional regulation
● Trait: low agreeableness, impulsivity, low conscientiousness
● Radical Behaviourism: OC and CC
● Humanistic: people inherently good, only commit crime if needs not met
● Sociocultural: the social world is an important influence
● Social Learning Theory: learning through observation, modelling, watching the consequences of others actions. Attention, retention, reproduction and motivation are factors that determine whether you’ll replicate that observed behaviour.
● Psychodynamic:
○ Aggression present when basic needs aren’t met – motivated by ID
○ All have same drives for crime, those who engage vs those who don’t depends on control (weak superego)
○ crime occurs when SuperEgo can’t control Id, or Ego can’t balance them
Framwork principles
empiricism, practical utility and individual differences
GPCSL RNR
The General Personality and Cognitive Social Learning (GPCSL)
model of offending that underlies RNR
takes radical behaviourism, differential association, social learning theory and psychodynamic theory into account.
Crime is understood based on whether the personal, interpersonal, and community supports for human behaviour are favourable or unfavourable to crime
General Personality
- Antisocial personality pattern
- history of generalized rule violation and trouble,
- personality factors such as impulsivity and self-centeredness = criminogenic needs and need for excitement, shallow affect = responsivity factors
Cognitive
- self-regulation (deliberate and automatic)
- pro-criminal attitudes, values and beliefs as causes to criminal behaviour.
Social Learning
- learning within the social context of friends, family, school, work and leisure. Assessments of the rewards and costs for criminal and prosocial behaviour within these social contexts along with automatic rewards and costs associated with some behaviours (e.g., drug use)
Central 8
● Antisocial attitude - Attitudes, values, beliefs
● A Associates
● Criminal history
● A personality - impulsive, aggressive, lack of regard of others
● Relationship - relationships within families and the expectations and rules in place
● Leisure - levels of prosocial activities
● School/work - relationships, performance
● Substance use
Psychometrics for crime
● RoCRoI: risk of conviction and imprisonment, only static factors
● VRS: violence risk scale, static and dynamic
● PCL- psychopathy checklist
