Criminological: Psychological Formulation

Question 1

What is the psychological formulation?

Answer 1

A form of diagnosis that aims to explain a persons difficulties by constructing a summary of a persons life.

Question 2

What is phase 1 of the psychological formulation?

Answer 2

Offence analysis:
why did they turn to crime?
Are there general factors? This allows psychologists to asses the risk of reoffending and attempt to remove these causes.

Question 3

What is phase 2 of the psychological formulation?

Answer 3

Understand what purpose crime serves.
Some offenders treat criminality like an addiction. Eg: rapists may compensate their own feelings of worthlessness on their victim.
This may hint towards early life issues or abuse.

Question 4

What is phase 3 of the psychological formulation?

Answer 4

Application to treatment.
Establishing a form of intervention for the offender, a rehab scheme that reflects why the offender first started crime.
May be reassessed to match progression.

Question 5

What is the supporting evidence of psychological formulation to understand offending behaviour?

Answer 5

SE: McKnight et al
Case formulation effectively predicts what treatment is needed.
= Psychological formulation is accurate.

Question 6

What is the opposing evidence of the psychological formulation in understanding criminal behaviour?

Answer 6

OE: Unknown Disorders
Some individuals may not know they have a diagnosis and so they don’t report it in questionnaires.

Question 7

What is the application of psychological formulation in understanding criminal behaviour?

Answer 7

Focuses on the offender:
Aims to treat and educate them on their issues so they can return to society.
=recidivism rates decrease.