Forensic psychology Flashcards
Offender profiling (Top-down approach A03)
Based on an old-fashioned ‘static’ model of personality
- Sees behaviour as driven by stable dispositional traits
- Behaviour may be driven by external factors that are constantly changing
The approach has little validity in this sense and may not be useful for identifying criminals or predicting next moves
Alison
Offender profiling (Top-down approach A03)
May only work for organised type
- Smallest space analysis of 100 murders in the USA
- Details of crime analysed with reference to characteristics of organised or disorganised killers
- Only found evidence for the existence of the organised type; no distinct disorganised type
Canter
Offender profiling (Top-down approach A03)
Classification is too simple - alternative models created
It is more useful to focus on motivations of killers than identifying specific types
Keppel and Walter
Offender profiling
(Bottom-up approach)
Geographical profiling
- Uses location of potentially linked crime scenes to make inferences about the base of the offender (aka crime mapping)
- Assumes that serial offenders will restrict their crimes to areas they are familiar with
- Allows researchers to draw inferences
1. A ‘centre of gravity’ of which the offenders’ base is usually in the centre (circle of crimes around the base)
2. A ‘jeopardy surface’ in which they are likely to strike next - Can tell us useful things about the offender
E.g. they are using a certain form of public transport, they are not in full-time employment
Rossmo
Offender profiling
(Bottom-up approach)
Circle theory
Two models of offender behaviour
1. The marauder - Operates in close proximity to base
2. The commuter - Travels significant distance away from base
Pattern of offending is still likely to form a circle around the base
Canter and Larkin
Offender profiling
(Bottom-up approach A03)
Supporting evidence in real cases
- Smallest space analysis of 120 cases involving serial killers in the USA
- Location of each body was in a different location from the previous ones, creating a ‘centre of gravity’, which the offender’s base was always somewhere inside
- Most noticeable in marauders
Lundrigan and Canter
Offender profiling
(Bottom-up approach A03)
Limited use in real life
- Surveyed 48 police forces
- Advice provided by profilers ‘useful’ in 87% of cases
- However, it only led to conviction 3% of the time
Copson
Biological explanations
(Atavistic form)
- Criminals
- Primitive sub-species who are biologically different from non-criminals
‘genetic throwbacks’
- Lack evolutionary development
Their ‘untamed nature’ makes it difficult to adjust to the demands of civilised society, so many turn to crime - Identifiable characteristics
Facial asymmetry, strong jaw, high cheekbones, extra body parts (toes, fingers)
- Murderers: curly hair, bloodshot eyes, long ears
- Sexual offenders: swollen lips
- Fraudsters: thin lips - Research
- Analysed physiological characteristics of Italian criminals (3000 living, 300 dead)
- 40% of crimes could be accounted for by atavistic characteristics
Lombroso
Biological explanations
(Atavistic form A03)
Scientific racism
- Some of the atavistic characteristics (dark skin, curly hair) are likely to be found in people of Afro-Caribbean descent
- His idea that these people are ‘primitive’ would lend support to eugenics movements at the time (late 1800s)
DeLisi
Biological explanations
(Atavistic form A03)
Intelligence
- Comparison of 3000 criminals and 3000 non-criminals
- Found no evidence that criminals are a distinct group with identifiable physiological characteristics
- However, he did find evidence that the criminals had a lower average intelligence
Supports theory that criminals are a sub-species, but discredits his theory that they are physically different
Goring
Biological explanations
(Genetic explanations)
Concordance rates for offending
MZ twins - 33%
DZ twins - 12%
Offending may have a genetic component
Christiansen
Biological explanations
(Genetic explanations)
Candidate genes
- Analysis of 900 offenders
- Revealed abnormalities on 2 genes that have been linked to violent behaviour - MAOA and CDH13
- Individuals with this combination were 13 times more likely to have a history of violent behaviour
Tiihonen
Biological explanations
(Neural explanations)
Prefrontal cortex
- Brain-imaging studies of people with antisocial personality disorder
- Some show reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex (regulates emotional behaviour)
- Also found an 11% reduction of grey matter in people with APD compared to controls
Raine
Biological explanations
(Neural explanations)
Mirror neurons and empathy
- Empathy reaction is controlled by mirror neurons
- These were only activated when criminals were asked to emphasise with somebody in a film experiencing pain
- People with APD may not be without empathy, but have a ‘neural switch’ that others do not to turn empathy on and off
Keysers
Biological explanations
(Genetic explanations A03, Differential association theory A03)
Support for diathesis-stress model
(Danish adoptee study)
Measured offending in 13,000 Danish adoptees
- Neither biological parent nor adoptive parent had convictions - 13.5%
- Either biological parent or adoptive parent had convictions - 20%
- Both biological parent or adoptive parent had convictions - 24.5%
Mednick
Psychological explanations
(ENP personality)
- Behaviour can be measured along 3 dimensions
E - introversion/ extraversion
N - neuroticism/ stability
P - psychoticism
Criminals will generally score high on E, N and P measures - Biological basis
Personality traits come about through the type of nervous system we inherit
Extraverts - underactive nervous system: constantly seek excitement, leads to risk-taking behaviour
Neurotics - jumpy, nervous, leads to unpredictable behaviour - Socialisation
- Offending is developmentally immature - immediate gratification
- People with high E and N scores have nervous systems that make them more difficult to condition
- So, they do not learn to antisocial impulses with anxiety, and are more likely to act on them - Eysenck personality inventory (EPI)
Questionnaire with questions aimed to determine where we fall on E,N and P dimesions
Eysenck and Eysenck - compared results of over 2000 criminals and 2000 controls from 16-16 years old
Criminals scored higher than controls on E, N and P measures
Eysenck
Psychological explanations
(Eysenck’s theory A03)
Psychoticism may be the only true measure
- Reviewed several studies and found high scores for criminals on P measure, but not on E and N measures
- Also, there is little evidence of consistent differences in EEG measures (used to measure cortical arousal) between extraverts and introverts
Brings question to the physiological aspect of the theory involving the nervous system
Farrington
Psychology explanations
(Eysenck’s theory)
Alternative model
Five-factor model of personality
- E (extraversion)
- N (neuroticism)
- Openness
- Agreeableness
- Conscientiousness
Can explain high E and N scores may not always lead to offending, but a combination of several factors might
Digman
Psychological explanations
(Eysenck A03)
Culturally relative
- Carried out study of hispanic and african-american offenders
- Divided into 6 groups according to severity of offence
- All groups were less extraverted on average than control group
Bartol and Holanchock
Psychological explanations
(Eysenck A03)
Personality oversimplified
- We play on many parts of our personality according to who we are with or the situation we are in
- A score on a test is not a valid representation of the complexity or personality
Mischel
Psychological explanations
(Cognitive explanations)
Level of moral reasoning
- Preconventional morality
1. punishment orientation
2. instrumental orientation/ personal gain - Conventional morality
3. ‘good boy/girl’ orientation
4. maintenance of social order - Postconventional morality
5. morality of contract and individual rights
6. morality of conscience - Criminals likely to have a lower, child-like level of moral reasoning (preconventional)
- As they only obey rules for superficial reasons, they are likely to commit crime for personal gain if they can avoid punishment; they are not morally obliged to behave
The Heinz Dilemma
- Used to measure level of morality
- Involves a man debating stealing a drug from a pharmacist who is selling it for far more than it is worth, in order to save his wive’s life
- Ppts asked relevant questions
“Should he steal the drug?” “Is the pharamacist wrong for charging so much?” “Should he steal it if it were a stranger?”
Kohlberg
Psychological explanations
(Cognitive explanations)
Cognitive distortions - hostile attribution bias
- Showed 55 offenders images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions
- Compared to controls, they were far more likely to interpret them as angry or challenging
Schonenberg and Justye
Psychological explanations
(Cognitive explanations)
Cognitive distortions - minimalisation
- 26 incarcerated rapists
- 54% denied they had committed an offence
- 40% minimised the harm they have done
Barbaree
Psychological explanations
(Cognitive explanations A03)
Kohlberg - support
- Socio-Moral Reflection Measure Short Form (SRM-SF)
11 dilemma questions
E.g. stealing from a friend - Offenders showed less mature moral reasoning than control group
Palmer and Hollin
Psychological explanations
(Cognitive explanations A03)
Kohlberg - alternative model of morality
- Immature
based on avoidance of punishment, personal gain
(equivalent to preconventional level) - Mature
based on empathy, social justice, conscience
(equivalent to conventional level)
No postconventional level - it is culturally level and based of western society
E.g. not all countries have democracy or well-established human rights as we know them
Gibbs
Psychological explanations
(Cognitive explanations A03)
Kohlberg - relevance of types of crime
- Preconventional morality more likely to be displayed in utilitarian/ financial crimes
- Violent crimes do not seemed to be based on any moral reasoning - may be impulsive
Reid
Psychological explanations
(Differential association theory)
Crime is learned like any other behaviour through interaction with others
This involves learning attitudes to crime and learning specific criminal acts
- Pro-criminal attitudes
- When we are socialised into a group we learn the values it holds
- These may be pro-crime or anti-crime, but if we are exposed to more pro-crime attitudes than anti-crime ones we will internalise these and go on to offend
- In this sense it should be mathematically possible to commit the likelihood of someone offending - Learning criminal acts
- We may also learn techniques for committing crime
E.g. how to pick a lock
Can be used to explain reoffending/ recedivism - prisons are ‘universities of crime’ as we are socialised into pro-crime attitudes and may learn ‘tricks of the trade’
Sutherland
Psychological explanations
(Psychodynamic explanations)
The inadequate superego
- The weak superego
- Same-sex parent is absent during phallic stage
- Child does not internalise fully-formed superego as they cannot identify with them - The deviant superego
- Same-sex parent holds deviant values
- Child internalises immoral beliefs - The over-harsh superego
- Same-sex parent is over-critical and harsh
- Child accepts strict feels excessive guilt and may commit crime to satify the need to be punished
Blackburn
Psychological explanations
(Psychodynamic explanations A03)
Gender differences in the superego
- Freudian theory suggests that girls develop a weaker superego as they do not experience castration anxiety, so do not feel as obliged to identify with the same-sex parent
- Found little to no evidence of any gender differences in morality, and when they existed, girls showed more mature morality than boys
Hoffman
Dealing with offenders
(Custodial sentencing A03)
Psychological effects
- Suicide rates among offenders 15 times higher than the general population
- Young men most at risk in the first 24 hours
Bartol
Dealing with offenders
(Behavioural modification)
- Introduced a token economy system in 3 behavioural units of a young offenders’ institute
- Found significant difference in positive behaviour between these 3 units and a control group with a token economy system
Hobbs and Holt
Dealing with offenders
(Behavioural modification)
Must be consistent
- All benefits are lost if staff apply the techniques inconsistently
- May be due to poor training, staff turnover
- Rewards may then not be associated with behaviour
Bassett and Blanchard
Dealing with offenders
(Behavioural modificatio A03)
Short-term effect
- Token economy systems have ‘little rehabilitative value’
- Behaviours shown in prison are usually lost on the outside in the absence of reinforcement
- Poor behaviour may even be positively reinforced on the outside
E.g. status, financial gain
Blackburn
Dealing with offenders
(Behavioural modification A03)
Specially-tailored programmes most effective
- Observed use of token economy system with young people with behavioural problems
- Those who didn’t respond were placed on a special programme where the rewards were more immediate and frequent and responded well
Field
Dealing with offenders
(Anger management)
- Cognitive factors trigger the emotional arousal that precedes violent acts
- Anger usually occurs in situations that people deem to be threatening
- Anger management teaches people to recognise this and realise the irrationality of their cognition
Novaco
Dealing with offenders
(Anger management)
National Anger Management Package (1990s)
- Observed the initiative
- Young offenders, 17-21 years old
- 8 2-hour sessions
- Not taken seriously by everyone at first
E.g. role play - Eventually had generally good results
Offenders reported feeling aware of their anger and more in control
Keen
Dealing with offenders
(Anger management)
Not effective in long-term
- Little evidence suggests that it reduces recedivism on the outside
- This may be because it does not reflect real-life situations or triggers on the outside world
Blackburn
Dealing with offenders
(Restorative justice)
“Crime hurts, justice should heal”
Braithwaite
Dealing with offenders
(Restorative justice A03)
Economic benefits
- Government-funded research
- For even £1 the government spends of restorative justice, it says £8 on reduced reoffending
(However, they may not always be cost-effective
Relies on a trained meditor, has high drop-out rates)
Shapland
Dealing with offenders
(Restorative justice A03)
Unpopular
- Although alternatives to incarceration may be more effective, they are seen as a ‘soft approach’ to crime
- They are rarely supported by key political figures who want to appear to be ‘tough on crime’
Davies and Raymond
