Final Exam Flashcards
Mass murderers
Have 4+ victims, no cooling off period, and kill in a single location. Divided into three categories: classic, family, felony.
Classic (public) mass murderers
Are male, young, and commit suicide. Extensive planning goes into their crimes and they average about 8.37 victims. They are depressed, frustrated, angry, and socially isolated. Their crimes are motivated by revenge, power, and hate, and their targets are symbolic of their anger.
Family mass murderers
Are the most common type (48%). They average 4.55 victims and are older males. They believe they are protecting their family from hardship. Victims are more often children.
Spree murderers (rapid sequence offenders)
Murder in 2+ locations and have 2+ victims. These crimes are a single event and their crimes do not have a cooling-off period.
Serial murderers
Have 2+ killings (previously 3) in different locations and separate events. Cooling-off period present.
Characteristics of US serial killers
Are generally 25-40 year-old white (52%) males (84%). They are of average intelligence and from troubled backgrounds. They tend to act alone and are geographically stable. Have an average of 4 unrelated, vulnerable female victims. Crimes are motivated by enjoyment, financial gain and anger. Methods are most often shooting, strangulation, and stabbing.
MMIWG epidemic
Indigenous women 7x more likely to be targeted by serial killers. Targets of domestic violence and reports go uninvestigated. 2021 231 calls to action.
Holmes and Holmes victim types
Visionary, mission-oriented, power/control-oriented, hedonistic
Criticisms of Holmes and Holmes typology
Overlap of types, lack of empirical scrutiny (typology generated from case files), and cannot explain changing motives
Risk factors for serial killing
Psychopathy, troubled backgrounds
Psychopathy and serial killing
While serial killers are often described as psychopathic, they are not all psychopaths. 90% number is likely inflated.
MacDonald triad
Triad of early childhood behaviours which are potential precursors to antisocial behaviour as an adult. Fire setting, enuresis (bed-wetting), and animal abuse.
Hickey (2002)’s trauma control model
Assumes equifinality. The combination of certain predisposition factors and early traumatic events interact with other factors to “create” a serial killer
Psychopathy
Refers to a collection of high level of traits, including: affective features, interpersonal traits, lifestyle features, and anti-social features.
Affective features of psychopathy
Callous, remorseless, no felt responsibility, disaffiliated, unempathetic
Interpersonal traits of psychopathy
Manipulative, grandiose, superficial charm, deceptive, dominant
Lifestyle features of psychopathy
Impulsivity, irresponsibility, need for stimulation, parasitic orientation, lack of realistic goals
Antisocial features
Early behaviour problems, delinquency, criminal versatility, failure to follow through on consequences, poor behavioural control
How common is psychopathy?
Less than 1% prevalence in general community, 4% of CEOs, 10-20% of incarcerated population, 10% of incarcerated child molesters, 35% of incarcerated rapists.
Adversarial allegiance
Tendency of forensic experts to form opinions in a manner that better supports the side that hired them
Reactive violence
Refers to unplanned violence. Generally crimes of passion resulting from extreme provocation.
Instrumental violence
Refers to planned violence, with the intent to settle a score. Crimes are generally cold-blooded.
Costs of violence and antisociality
According to Brazil and Forth (2020), does psychopathy involve appearing attractive during interactions?
Men higher in physical attractiveness received higher attractiveness ratings, as did men higher in psychopathy, who received higher attractiveness ratings.
Rice et al.’s 1992 treatment study
Treatment was associated with reduced violent recidivism in non psychopaths, but increased violent recidivism in psychopaths.
Psychopaths in treatment
Do not believe they need treatment, are more likely to drop-out of treatment, and more likely to be disruptive during group therapy
Youth intervention for psychopathy
Some youth treatments are very promising (Multisystemic therapy, compassion-focused therapy) and seem more helpful
Reidy et al. (2015) on prevention
Multiple individual and environmental levels to target before problematic traits and behaviour becomes full-blown psychopathy (child, parents and family, neighbourhood and community, broader social values and norms)
Stages of memory
Seeing/perceiving, encoding, storage, retrieval
Yerkes-Dodson law
Some stress is optimal, but not too much
Factors that effect perception stage
Change blindness and stress (Yerkes-Dodson law)
Change blindness
Occurs when a change in visual stimulus is introduced but viewer does not notice it
Encoding stage of memory
Information is converted for storage
Factors that affect encoding stage
Attention, unexpectedness, witness involvement, state of the witness
Storage stage of memory
Information retained in memory
Retrieval stage of memory
Information retrieved from memory
Recall memory
Reporting details of a previously witnessed event/person
Recognition memory
Reporting whether current information is the same as previous information (eg: lineups)
Factors affecting retrieval stage of memory
Inferences, stereotypes, partisanship, scripts/schemas, emotional factors, context effects, time, post-event information
Use of independent variables in the study of eyewitness issues
Use of estimator and system variables
Estimator variables
Are present at the time of the crime and cannot be changed
System variables
Variables that can be manipulated to increase or decrease
Hypnosis as a method of aiding eyewitness memory
Can increase amount of details, but these details are not necessarily accurate. The hypnotized person becomes more suggestible.
Cognitive interviewing as a method of aiding eyewitness memory
30% increase to amount of accurate information retrieval
Cognitive interviewing
Mental reinstatement of context, report everything, recall of event in different order, change of perspective
Variables used to measure the accuracy of memory
Accuracy, type of errors
Police questioning
Questioning of witnesses with the goal of collecting complete and accurate information
Fisher et al. (1987) found that police officers…
Interrupted witnesses often, asked short, specific questions/off-topic question/leading questions. These findings are replicated with recent research.
Main findings of Loftus & Palmer’s research on impact of poor questioning (1974)
Wording of questions (“smashed” vs other words caused higher speeds to be reported) matters
Misinformation acceptance hypothesis
People guess, try to appease experimenter
Source misattribution hypothesis
Can recall both memories (accurate and inaccurate) but can’t differentiate between them
Memory impairment hypothesis
Original memory replaced with new, incorrect memory
Morgan et. al’s 2013 POW misinformation experiment
861 US military personnel confined to mock POW camp underwent a hostile, aggressive interrogation. Afterward, they were assigned to misinformation or one of the three kinds of misinformation, and shown a photo of their interrogator, then asked leading questions regarding their glasses, telephone and weapon.
Results of Morgan et al. (2013)’s misinformation experiment
91% of misinformed participants gave a false ID
Misinformation and memory in high-stress situations, according to Morgan et al. (2013)
Human memory for realistic, recently experienced stress is subject to substantial error. Stressful events is also highly vulnerable to modification by exposure to misinformation. Even without misinformation, half of us would mis-identify a subject in a stressful environment
Enhanced cognitive interviewing
Includes principles of social dynamics in the memory retrieval principles used in Cognitive Interviewing. Additionally includes rapport-building, supportive interviewer behaviour, transfer of control, focused retrieval, and witness-compatible trading
Simultaneous lineups
Preset all members at the same time, relies on relative judgment
Sequential lineups
Presents members one at a time, relies on absolute judgment
Simultaneous vs sequential lineups
Mixed findings, but most suggest more correct rejections occur for sequential lineups.
Show-up lineup
Only suspect is shown to witness. Witness is aware of police view of suspect, can result in bias.
Walk-by lineup
Conducted in a natural environment, where witness is taken to area where suspect is likely to be.
American guidelines for improvement of line-ups
- The person conducting the lineup or photo array should not know which
person is the suspect. - Witnesses should be told that the perpetrator may not be present in the
lineup - The suspect should not differ from foils based on witnesses description
(match to description strategy) - Witness’ confidence should be assessed prior to feedback
Canadian guidelines for improvement of line-ups
- Photo lineups should be videotaped.
- Inform witnesses that clearing innocent suspects and identifying
guilty ones are equally important. - Lineup should be presented sequentially.
- Officers should not provide feedback.
Video surveillance
Errors are still coming (disguises, lighting, quality)
Voice identification
Accuracy increases when there is a longer voice sample and no accent. Accuracy decreases when there is whispering or emotion, more foils, and target voice occurs later in lineup.
Jury functions
Apply the law and render a verdict, protect against out of date laws, create a sense of community conscience, increase knowledge of justice system
Summary offence
Minor, sentence of under 6 months/fine of under 2,000$, tried by a judge alone
Indictable offence
Serious offences which can be tried by judge alone or by a jury
Hybrid offence
Crown decides
Jury Act
Outlines how juries are selected; with random names drawn from the community, who receive summons and arrive at court. The jury for a criminal case is made up of twelve members, whereas a civil case’s jury has six members.
Peremptory challenge
No reason provided, only 20 people allowed
Challenge for cause
Lawyer must give reason
Scientific jury selection
Not possible in Canada, but two approaches in US (Broad-based and case specific)
Broad based approach to scientific jury selection
Crown looks for people high on authoritarianism and dogmatism during voir-dire
Case specific approach to scientific jury selection
Case-specific questionnaire created and administered to develop profile of ideal juror
R v Nepoose (1991)
The defendant was an Indigenous woman. The jury composition for her trial was successfully challenged for having too few women.
R v Nahdee (1993)
The jury was successfully challenged for improperly excluding people living on a native reserve.
R v Guess (1998)
Juror for Peter Gill’s murder trial became connected outside of the courtroom, and engaged in a sexual relationship. Gill was found not guilty! Guess and Gill were changed with obstruction of justice.
R v Murrin (1998)
Macdonald and Murrin’s relationship started (allegedly) after the trial was over.
Impartiality
Jury can have no pre-existing biases, must ignore inadmissible evidence, and can have no connection to defendant.
Threats to impartiality
Pre-trial publicity creates exposure to negative publicity, which leads to more guilty verdicts. Even in cases of positive pre-trial publicity, jurors cannot ignore information, even if it is inadmissible.
Three options to overcome bias
Change in venue, adjournment, challenge for cause
Process of reaching a verdict
Jury selection, listening to evidence, disregarding inadmissible evidence, judge’s instructions, deliberations, the final verdict
Note-taking in listening to evidence
Facilitate memory and understanding, provides an accurate record, and does not have undue influence. However, note-takers exert too much influence and juries may rely too heavily on note-taking.
Disregarding inadmissible evidence
Jurors may not actually disregard (backfire effect) but can if given a logical reason.
Judge’s instructions
Outline the application of the law to the facts
Mathematical models of decision-making
Jury making a set of mental calculations, with a weight assigned to each specific piece of evidence
Explanation-based models of decision-making
The evidence is organized into a coherent whole, which is more consistent with how jurors generally make decisions
Jury nullification
Widely acknowledged as something juries have the power to do. Defence lawyers do not have the power to alert juries about this possibility. Juries’ ignorance of the law, when they feel the law is unfair or that the punishment is too harsh.
Methods of jury research
Archival records, stimulation techniques, field research, post-trial interviews
Archival records
Have high external validity, but no control over data collection, no cause-effect and researchers cannot go back for more information
Stimulation techniques
High internal validity, and ability to determine cause and effect. However, can be artificial and generally only use students.
Field research
High external validity, but permission is required. Semi-control.
Post-trial interviews
Illegal in Canada, high external validity, many problems (social desirability bias, forget, don’t know, inaccurate recall) and can’t establish cause and effect.
CSI effect
Jurors want physical evidence
Final verdict
Unanimous vote required in Canada, but majority OK in US/UK, first poll of jury is highly predictive.
Racial bias
More guilty verdicts for other race
Black sheep effect
Weak evidence results in lenient response, strong evidence results in punitive response
Dynamic actuarial tools
Are sometimes referred to as risk/needs scale. They share all advantages of actuarial scales, are theoretically relevant and practically useful. However, they are resource intensive and have lower interrater reliability for dynamic factors rather than actuarial factors (HCR-20)
Actuarial tools
Are consistent, easy-to-use, but have no theoretical base. Items are static and unchangeable, and the tools themselves are nomothetic (Static 99R)
LSI-R
Actuarial tool assessing risk using points
HCR-20
No total score, clinician decides
Structured Professional Judgment
Includes dynamic and static risk factors, theoretically relevant and practically useful. Flexible. Vulnerable to bias, no predicted recidivism rates, unclear risk judgment. Specialized scales perform best.
Does it matter which risk assessment a clinician picks?
Different methods for different people, designed to predict different outcomes, not all can perform interventions. Clinicians should pick assessment tools they are trained to use, have enough time for, and are consistent.
