Forensic Psychology Flashcards
What is forensic psychology?
Putting psychological principles into the criminal justice system.
Define crime
A deliberate act that causes physical or psychological harm, damage to or loss of property which is against the law.
What is offender profiling?
Behavioural and analytical tool that is intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown offenders.
What are the 2 different methods of profiling?
Top-down and bottom-up
Discuss the Top-Down method of profiling
-Analysis of previous crime
-Relies on intuition and beliefs of profiler
Starts from a general classification of crime scene, make judgements on how likely offenders fit in.
Organised and disorganised offenders.
What is an organised offender and outline their characteristics?
Planned, self-control of crime scene, targets the victim, leaves few clues.
Characteristics: Follows media coverage, married, socially and sexually competent, above average intelligence, skilled occupation.
What is a disorganised offender and outline their characteristics?
Little planning, no attempt of hiding evidence, random selection.
Characteristics: Live alone, Low IQ, no social skills, non-skilled occupation
Evaluate the Top-down approach
+ Supporting evidence:
for a distinct organised category of offender, Canter et al. conducted analysis on 100 US murders each commited by a different serial killer. Smallest space analysis revealed that there does seem to be a subset of features matched with FBI’s typology for organised offenders.
+ Can be adapted for other kinds of crime such as burglary:
led to an 85% rise in solved cases in 3 US states.
- Evidence is flawed:
Canter argues the sample was poor and there were no standardised questions.
What are the 4 main stages of an FBI profile?
- Data assimilation: the profiler reviews evidence
- Crime scene classification: Organised or disorganised?
- Crime reconstruction: hypotheses in terms of sequence of events and victim behaviour.
- Profile Generation: hypotheses related to the likely offender e.g demographic background and characteristics
Discuss the Bottom-up method of profiling
Psychological theory and data-driven approach.
Generate a picture of the offender, their likely characteristics, routine behaviour and social background, through systematic analysis of evidence of the crime scene.
-Investigative psychology
-Geographical profiling, circle theory
What are the aims of investigative psychology?
-Attempts to apply statistical procedures alongside psychological theory to the analysis of crime scene evidence.
-Establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur across crime scenes for a statistical database comparison.
What are the key features of the investigative psychology approach?
Interpersonal coherence: people are consistent in their behaviour therefore links with elements of the crime.
Forensic awareness: Certain behaviours may reveal an awareness of particular police techniques and past experience.
What does geographical profiling involve?
-Generalising from locations of linked crime scenes to the likely home of the offender.
-Based on the assumption that most offenders like to operate in areas that they know well.
-Helps investigators make an educational guess about an offender, and where they are likely to strike next.
What is Circle Theory?
Canter and Larkin proposed most offenders have a spatial mindset, they commit their crimes within an imagined circle, usually around where they live.
2 models of offender behaviour:
-The Maurauder: operates close to home.
-The commuter: likely to have travelled.
Evaluation of bottom-up approach
+ Evidence supports its use: analysis on 66 sexual assault cases using smallest space analysis. Each individual displayed a characteristic pattern of behaviours that helped establish id two or more offences were committed by the same person.
+ Support of geographical profiling: looked at 120 murder cases in the US and used smallest space analysis which created a centre of gravity using body disposal sites, circular effect around home.
- Geographical profiling is not sufficient on its own: may be reliant on the quality of data provided, not always accurate.
What is Atavistic form?
A biological approach to offending that attributes criminal activity to the fact that offenders are genetic throwbacks or a primitive subspecies ill-suited to conforming to the rules of modern society, individuals distinguishable by particular facial features.
Evaluate Atavistic form
+Lombroso’s work radically changed the study of crime:
‘father of modern criminology’ moved the justice system away from moralistic discourse towards a more scientific approach due to genes.
-Lombroso’s methods of investigation were poorly conducted:
did not control many confounding variables or compare the offender sample to a non-offender sample.
-Lombroso’s legacy has been criticised as not entirely positive:
DeLisi has drawn attention to the racist undertones of his work, many features he defined as atavistic are often found among people of african decent, unethical.
What are the 3 genetic explanations of offending?
-Twin and adoption studies
-Candidate genes
-Diathesis stress model
Outline the twin and adoption studies
Christiansen-
-3500 twin pairs in Denmark with a concordance rate of 35% for identical males, and 13% for non-identical males. Females had a lower overall rate.
-All twins born in a certain region between 1880-1910.
-Behaviour was checked against Danish police records.
-Data suggests it may not be the behaviour inherited but the underlying pre-disposing traits.
adopted children that had a biological mother with a criminal record had a 50% chance of having a criminal record by 18, whereas if they didn’t have. bio mother it was 5%.
Outline the candidate genes explanation
Tiihonen et al. conducted genetic analysis of 800 Finnish offenders and suggested 2 genes, MAOA warrior gene, and CDH13 may be associated with violent crimes.
MAOA regulates serotonin, linked to an increase in aggressive behaviour. Shorter version of gene means serotonin floods brain and there is not enough MAOA to mop it up, leads to lowered sensitivity to serotonin.
Outline the Diathesis-stress model explanation
Partly moderated by the environment. A tendency towards offending behaviour may come through a combination of genetic predisposition and biological or physiological trigger e.g having criminal role models.
What is Antisocial Personality Disorder?
(APD)
Evidence has suggested that there may be a difference in the brains of offenders and non-offenders. Reduced emotional responses, lack of empathy.
What are the symptoms of antisocial personality disorder?
-Reduced emotional responses
-Lack of empathy
-Reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex.
-11% reduction of grey matter in prefrontal cortex.
What are mirror neurons?
Keyers-
Found that when offenders are asked to empathise with film characters feeling pain, their empathy reaction activated. This is controlled by mirror neurons in the brain. This suggests that individuals with APD are able to empathise but have a neural switch which can be turned on and off
What are the 2 neural explanations?
Antisocial Personality disorder and mirror neurons
Evaluate the neural explanation
+Research support for the link between crime and the frontal lobe:
people with frontal lobe damage tended to show impulsive behaviour, emotional instability, and an inability to learn from mistakes.
-The link between APD and neural differences may be more complex:
studied a group of men who scored highly on psychopathy, they experienced a number of risk factors in childhood e.g neglect so could be down to trauma.
What is Eysneck’s theory of the criminal personality?
The criminal personality:
NEP: Neurotic, extravert, psychotic
High in:
Neuroticism- prone to over react, unpredictable
Extraversion- engage in risky or dangerous situations
Psychotism- higher levels of testosterone, unemotional and prone to aggression.
makes a criminal
How is the nervous system linked to the criminal personality?
Extraverts: unreactive nervous system, constantly seeks excitement
Neurotic: high level of reactivity in the sympathetic nervous system
Psychotic: high levels of testosterone
What is Socialisation?
People who were in high extraversion and neuroticism in childhood were less easily conditioned and therefore do not learn to avoid anti-social behaviour.
Criminals don’t go through socialisation in childhood haven’t been taught delay gratification, more likely to act antisocially.
Outline the key points of the cognitive approach
Cognitive distortions:
-Hostile attribution bias
-Minimisation
Level of moral reasoning
What are cognitive distortions?
Faulty, biased and irrational ways of thinking that mean that individuals percieve themselves, others, and the world inaccurately.
