Forensic psychology Flashcards
what is the definition of crime?
Any illegal act that is punishable after consideration by judge and jury in a legal trial
what are two types of issues raised when defining crime?
Historical and cultural
What is a historical limitation of defining crime? and give an example
things that were historically considered a crime may not be considered a crime according to modern standards, e.g. homosexuality is no longer illegal in the UK
What is a cultural issue when defining crime and give an example?
What is considered to be criminal behaviour is culturally relative, e.g. in the UK smacking a child is illegal under child protection act but in some cultures it is seen as a form of tough love
what are the 3 main methods of measuring crime?
- Official statistics
- Victim surveys
- Offender surveys
what are official statistics as a way of measuring crime? outline a limitation of this
-number of crimes reported to and recorded by the police
-may conceal the ‘dark figure’ of crime, 75% of crimes aren’t included in official stats because they either aren’t reported or aren’t recorded properly
how do victim surveys work?
what is an advantage of this?
and a limitation?
in the uk a large number of houses are randomly selected to self report number of crimes committed against them in the past year, published by crime survey
-advantage: dark figure of crime is more likely to be included, giving a more accurate representation of crime
-however because it relies on self reporting victims of crime may be more likely to report the crime as having happened more recently due to telescoping (due to trauma and distress associated with the crime)
how do offender surveys work? strength and limitation of this?
-selects a random co-hort of criminals who are asked to report the number of crimes they committed against people in a certain timeframe
-good because shows patterns of offender behaviour and is useful for developing preventative strategies
-limited because the offenders may over or under exaggerate their crimes to have a sense of accomplishment or to diminish responsibility
how does the top down approach work in offender profiling?
-profiles criminals into two categories: organised or disorganised
-it involves:
1. crime scene classification (as organised or disorganised)
2. crime reconstruction
3. data collection
4. profile generation
what are characteristics of an organised offender?
-Socially and sexually competent
-Evidence of planning, unlikely to leave evidence at the crime scene
-often have a certain ‘type’ of victim
what are characteristics of a disorganised offender?
-Socially and sexually incompetent
-No evidence of planning, attacks are random and evidence often left at crime scene (e.g. the body of victim)
-Often live alone and are unemployed
what are limitations of top down approach to offender profiling?
-Not all criminals are easily classified into organised or disorganised
-Limited to a certain type of crimes such as violent crimes, wouldnt work for crimes such as financial fraud
-Lack of evidence to support the disorganised offender profile, Canter et al found there isnt a distinct difference between classification of murderers
how does the bottom up approach of offender profiling work? how is it limited?
-No pre established profile classification
-Develops a profile as crime scene and EWT are increasingly analysed
-Uses two main methods: investigative psychology and geographical profiling
-limited because doesnt always lead to correct identification of the offender
-Copson 1995 found it led to correct identification of offender 3% of the time but was still a useful tool
what is geographical profiling in bottom up approach?
Geographical profiling infers the location of the crime by looking at mapping of locations of previous crimes
how is investigative psychology used in bottom up approach?
Investigative psychology uses crime databases to match details with the crime to develop info on likely characteristics and social demographic of the culprit
what is an advantage of the bottom up approach of offender profiling?
-relies on scientific methods of enquiry and statistical analysis, is based on psychological theories unlike top down which is oversimplistic
-strong evidence supporting geographical profiling
what are 3 biological explanations of offender behaviour?
-atavistic form
-genetic and neural explanations
what is atavistic form as an explanation for offender behaviour?
-Proposed by Lombroso who suggested criminals are less evolved and less suited to modern civilisation which is they offend
-can be identified by certain atavistic characteristics depending on the type of crime, e.g. murderers were said to have bloodshot eyes, sexual deviants were described as having glinting eyes
- in lombrosos research studying cranial features of offenders, 40% had atavistic form
-lombrosos is considered to be father of criminology, because a lot of modern criminal profiling is based on his original ideas
what are limitations of atavistic form?
-many modern psychologists have criticised lombrosos theory as racist, as it causes certain races to be targeted in offender identification
-often considered to be unscientific, didnt use a control group from another culture, all criminals studied were of one race, didnt have statistical analysis
What are genetic explanations for offender behaviour?
- Role of candidate genes in devlopment of criminal behaviour
-Supported by twin studies
Christiansen et al:
33% concordance rates for MZ identical twins, and 12% for DZ non identical twins
-likely to be due to a combination of environment and genetics because it isnt 100% concordant for MZ, so could be explained with diathesis-stress model
according to genetic explanations for offender behaviour, abnormalities in which genes may lead to development of criminal characteristics?
-MAOA
-CDH-13
-Both code for neurotransmitters such as seratonin and dopamine, increases development of becoming a criminal
what are the 2 main neural explanations for offender behaviour? and the studies supporting this
-antisocial personality disorder, which is very common among criminals
-Raine et al: found that criminals have a lower volume and activity level in the prefrontal cortex which is responsible for decision making and logical thinking, so this 11% reduction may be responsible for irrational thinking
- the other neural explanation is Keysers et al that suggested criminals may have faulty mirror neurons that can be switched off reducing their capacity for empathy, explaining why criminals lack empathy towards their victims
what is a psychological explanation of offender profiling?
Eysencks theory
-Suggested that there is a specific criminal personality which is neurotic-extravert
-closely related to biological explanation as extroverts also have underactive nervous system and looking for new stimulation which may explain their impulsive nervous nature similar to criminals
-those with neurotic-extravert personality are unable to perceive negative/antisocial behaviour as undesirable or not allowed
