forensic psychology Flashcards
(42 cards)
define a crime
an action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by the countries law
outline the problems in defining crime
Cultural issues defining crime:
-What is considered a crime and how that act is dealt with varies considerably from culture to culture. For example, being gay is illegal in places like Qatar but legal in the UK
Historical issues in defining crime :
-Definitions of crime change over time like homosexually was illegal in Britain until 196
define deviance
diverging from usual to accepted standards especially in social or sexual behaviour
outline the top down approach for offender profiling
4 stages of constructing a top down profile
1. data assimilation: reviews evidence
2. crime scene classification: organised/disorganised
3. crime reconstruction: how did the crime take place
4.profile generation: hypothesis of characteristics of offender
organised crime: above average IQ, socially and sexually adequate, married/cohabitating, skilled occupation
disorganised crime: live alone, below average IQ, socially and sexually inadequate, unskilled occupation.
evaluate the top-down approach
-Can only be applied to sexually motivated kills because of the limitation of the original sample that they interviewed
-Alison et al argues that this approach is outdated as it believes in people’s personality being stable and no external factors affecting offending behaviour
-Reductionist- the classification system is too simple, and offenders are neither disorganised or organised they can have a mix of both features in their crimes and an offender might start off being disorganised and become more organised.
+ helps in cases where there is little evidence to go off and can lead to breakthroughs
outline the bottom up approach
canter created the bottom up approach which looks for consistent behaviours in offenders and starts with the details and builds it up to make the bigger picture.
no initial assumptions are made and the bottom up approach relies heavily on computer databases
investigate psychology- using small space analysis you can identify patterns and see if a series of crimes are linked to each other
interpersonal coherance- how does teh crime show us what the person is like in real life
geographical profiling- look at the spatial consistecny of the crime scenes and whether the criminal is a maruander or commuter
evaluate the bottom up approach
+ evidence to support investigative psychology, Canter and Heritage analysed 66 sexual assault cases using SSA and identified clear and common patterns
+ evidence to support geographical profiling Lundrigan and Canter collated evidence from 120 murder cases and found that the offenders home base was invariably located in the centre of the crime scene pattern
+ the use of SSA makes this approach much more scientific than top-down typologies
+ bottom up has wider applications, and it can be applied to other crimes not just sexually motivated serial killers like top-down
-Despite Copson saying 83% of police find it useful only 3% of cases lead to an accurate identification of the offender.
-in the case of Rachel Nickell, the offender profile made by bottom-up approach led to a misleading profile and the wrongful arrest of Collin Stagg.
what are the biological explanations for crime
Atavistic Form
Neural explanations like APD and mirror neurons
genetic explanations like an extra Y chromsome or the MAOA gene
outline atavistic form
This is the biological explanation of criminality. Lombroso used this to explain that offenders are genetic throwbacks, or a primitive sub species not suited to conforming to the roles of modern society
In a study of 383 dead Italian criminals and 3839 living ones he found 40% of them had atavistic characteristics William Sheldon and the Body type Theory
Found male delinquents were much more likely to be mesomorphs than male students of a similar age
evaulate atavistic form as a biological explanation
+ it was the first attempt to identify biological explanations for criminality and the beginning of offender profiling and modern forensic science
-Study was not statistically frequent to support it
-Lombroso didn’t have a control group of non criminals so it could have been that those characteristics are common in the general population
-Lombroso had been accused of scientific racism as some of the characteristics he identified were more prevalent in certain racial groups.
-Goring did find evidence that criminals tended to have lower than average intelligence, but this may mean crime is due to lack of education rather than any biological factors
what are the diagnostic features of APD
Repeatedly breaking the law
Repeatedly being decietful
Being impulsive
Being irritable and aggressive
Being reckless
Disregard for personal safety and for others
Lack of remorse
outline the neural explanations of offending behaviour
Adrian Raine used PET scans and found abnormalities in some parts of the brain in violent criminals. Most of the criminals in these studies were diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and had reduced brain activity in the prefrontal cortex which is the part of the brain that regulates emotional behaviour. 11% of the ppts with APD also had reduced grey matter.
Keyser’s found that mirror neurons did not function in individuals with APD in the same way as they do in normal controls. Mirror Neurons help us to feel empathy. Individuals with APD were not completely without empathy but had to be told to feel empathy when seeing a film showing an individual experiencing pain. It seems these individuals can switch the mirror neurons on and off.
evaluate the neural explanation of offending behaviour
-Not every criminal has APD or an abnormal brain structure
-Everyone has free will to break the law or not
+ studies are scientific as they use scientific equipment like PET scans
-some don’t believe that mirror neurons exist as there isn’t enough scientific evidence to prove they do yet
outline the genetic explanations for offending behaviour
Price: males with an extra Y chromosome were predisposed to violent crime as they were below average intelligence
Christiansen: 3586 twin pairs in Denmark and 52% concordance rate for criminality was found for Mz twins compared to just 22% for Dz twins
Brunner- took a family from the Netherlands where males were affected by low intelligence and abnormal violent behaviour (arson, attempted rape, flashing). Brunner collected data like medical records, school reports and criminal records. He found that there was a mutation in a gene on the chromosome responsible for MAOA which leads to lower levels of neurotransmitters which can lead to behavioral problems, sleep problems and emotional arousal.
evaluate the genetic explanations for offending behaviour
+ support for the diathesis stress model of crime as someone may have biological tendencies towards crime but that they will need some biological trigger to become a criminal
+ use of scientific method and equipment e.g. PET scans
-Sample sizes are very small so can’t generalise
-Criminals have free will and not biologically determined to commit crime
-Explaining complexity of crime through brain structure and genes is very reductionist
-Individual differences as JIM FALLON has the brain of a serial killer and have the mutation of the MAOA gene but he is a normal behaving ppt of society
-Crime is a social construct so how can we have a biological predisposition to break laws that society invented
what is Eysenck’s theory of personality for offending behaviour
Out personality is innate and has a biological basis
There is a personality type known as the criminal personality and these personalities score high on measures of extraversion, neuroticism (moody, anxious, fearful, jealous) and psychoticism (impulsive, lack of remorse or care for safety) and are difficult to condition
Eyesenck had a personality questionnaire which was designed to measure how you usually feel or act and then you were given a score on the Extraversion, Neuroticism and Psychoticism and was a way of measuring the personality
evaluate Eysencks thoery of personality as an explanation for offending behaviour
+supporting evidence from Eysenck’s study of 2070 male prisoners and 2422 control males and the prisoners scored higher on extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism than the non-criminal controls. But Farrington reviewed several studies and only found evidence of prisoners scoring higher on measures of psychoticism
- The idea of personality explaining all offending behaviour is not very plausible as there are many different types of offenders, and all crimes are different.
- Culturally biased and Holancock studied black and Hispanic criminals in America and found them to be less extroverted than non criminal groups which goes against Eysenck’s
- Low validity of measuring personality through psychometric test is also questionable as is the notion that personality is a stable entity and people would argue personality changes
outline the cognitive explanation for offending behaviour
Cognitive distortions
- Hostile attribution bias: when an offender misreads the actions or intentions of another person and they may assume someone is being confrontational when they are not. E.g. being looked at with a blank expression and sating “ what you looking at”
——>Schoenberg and Justyne presented 55 violent offenders with emotionally ambiguous faces compared to non-aggressive matched control group they were much less likely to perceive faces as angry and hostile
——–>Dodge and frame showed a clip to children a video clip of ambiguous provocation children who had been identified as rejected or aggressive were much more likely to classify the situation as hostile - Minimalisation is an attempt to downplay or deny the seriousness of an offence
—–>Barbaree found amongst 26 convicted rapists 54% denied they had committed the offence and 40% minimized the harm caused to the victim. E.g. it was just banter when being racist. - Internal and external attribution is when you either justify our behavior by taking full responsibility or blaming someone or something else. e.g. so and so told me to do it
- Fundamental attribution errors are when we blame the external factors like childhood for out own behaviour but attribute more significance to others personality when considering behaviour of others. e.g. good grade due to your hard work, bad grade due to teachers
evaluate the cognitive explanations for offending behaviour
+ If offending behaviour can be explained by cognitive distortions than this has practical applications for rehab as we can use CBT to change the way offenders think and therefore change their behaviour
- Individual differences between criminals and not all cognitive distortions can explain crime because we can never truly know what a person is thinking and can only ask and infer thoughts from behaviour and both methods lack validity and reliability.
outline research into moral development
Kohlberg believed that children’s cognition and development through stages. His research involved presenting groups of boys with moral dilemmas and asking questions about them
Aim- find evidence to support a progression through stages of moral development
Procedure- 58 working, middle class boys from Chicago aged 7,10,13,16 were given a two-hour interview with 10 dilemmas to solve. Some of these boys were followed up at 3 yearly intervals and the study was repeated in 1969 in the UK, Mexico, Taiwan and the USA.
Findings- younger boys tended to perform at stages 1 and 2 with older boys at stage 3 and 4 this pattern was consistent across different cultures
what are the stages of moral development
Level 1- Pre-mortality/conventional(up to 9)
- Stage 1: Punishment and obedience orientation. Doing what is right in fear of punishment
- Stage 2: Hedonistic orientation. Doing what is right for personal gain like a reward
level 2- conventional moraility ( 9 to 19)
- Stage 3: interpersonal concordance orientation .Doing what is right according to majority
- Stage 4: law and order orientation. Doing what is right because it is your duty and helps society
Level 3- Post conventional morality (adolescence+)
- Stage 5: social contract or logistic orientation .Doing what is right even if it is against the law
- Stage 6: universal ethical principles orientation .Doing what is right because of our inner conscience which has absorbed the principles of justice, equality and sacredness of human life
evaluate the moral development theory as an explanation of offending behaviour
Thorton and Reid with criminal samples suggest that criminals committing crime for financial gain show more immature reasoning than those committing violent crimes
Chandler: found individuals that function at higher levels of moral reasoning tend to sympathise more with the right of others and exhibit more conventional behaviour such as honesty, generosity and non-violence
- Kohlberg’s research was Androcentric, Ethnocentric, Longitudinal (effects over time but people tend to drop out)
what are the psychological explanations for offending behaviour
Eysenck’s personality theory
cognitive distortions
moral development
differential association hypothesis
outline the differential association hypothesis
suggests that through interaction with other individuals learn values and motivation for criminal behaviour
Sutherland presented his theory in the form of 9 principles
- Criminal behavior is learnt
- Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other people
3.Learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate groups
4.In learning criminal behavior, it can include techniques, motive, aggression not just the actual crime.
5.The direction of motives is learned from the definitions of the legal codes as favorable or unfavorable
6.A person becomes delinquent because there are more positives to committing crime then not
7.Differing associations may vary in frequency, duration and priority
8.The process of learning criminal behaviour requires all the mechanisms of learning
9.While criminal behaviour is an expression of needs but not explained by general needs as all people have the same needs, but don’t all commit crime.
2 assumptions
- deviancy occurs when an experience is seen as an opportunity to go against norms
- someones definition of an experience is aquired from past experiences
