Forensic Psychology

Question 1

What are the main problems with defining crime?

Answer 1

• time relative
• culturally relative
• age relative

Question 2

What is meant by time relative?

Answer 2

• peoples attitudes, social norms and moral values change over time
• laws change over time

Question 3

What is meant culturally relative?

Answer 3

• attitudes aren’t always the same across all cultures

- what’s legal in one culture could be considered illegal in another

Question 4

What is meant by age relative?

Answer 4

• e.g a toddler wouldn’t understand what they could be doing, so they aren’t criminals

Question 5

What are the three ways of measuring crime?

Answer 5

• official statistics
• offender surveys
• victim surveys

Question 6

What is official statistics?

Answer 6

• based on crimes that are reported to the police
• recorded in official figures
• dark figure of crime (unreported crimes)
• published by Home Office on annual basis, develops crime prevention strategies

Question 7

What are victim surveys?

Answer 7

• interviews w/ large samples
• RPS asked whether they or member of their household has been a victim of crime in the last year
• 50k households randomly selected to take part

Question 8

What are offender surveys?

Answer 8

• young people in England and Wales interviewed about their attitudes towards and experiences of crime
• random selection, National, longitudinal survey
• focuses on 10-25 year olds

Question 9

Evaluate offender surveys.

Answer 9

• unreliable, significantly underestimate true extent of crime
• 75% make up dark figure of crime
• Farrington and Dowds (1985) police in Nottinghamshire were more likely than other areas to record thefts of under £10

Question 10

Evaluate victim surveys.

Answer 10

• more accurate, more likely to include unreported crimes
• 2006/7 official statistics suggested 2% decrease in crime, BCS showed 3% increase
• telescoping may occur as victims may misremember

Question 11

Evaluate offender surveys.

Answer 11

• provide insight into how many people are responsible for offences
• offenders may want to conceal or even exaggerate offences
• targeted nature of surveys means crimes such as burglary are over-represented

Question 12

What is the Top Down Approach?

Answer 12

• aim is to narrow the field of enquiry
• methods usually involves scrutiny of the crime scene and analysis of evidence to generate hypotheses about gender, age, background and education
• profilers match what is known about the crime and offenders pre-existing template that FBI develop

Question 13

What is meant by an organised offender?

Answer 13

• show evidence of having planned the crime in advance
• maintain a degree of control and operate w/ surgical precision
• little evidence left at the scene

Question 14

What characteristics do organised offenders have?

Answer 14

• above average intelligence
• skilled
• professional
• socially and sexually competent
• usually married and have children

Question 15

What is meant by disorganised offender?

Answer 15

• show little planning
• offences are spontaneous
• very little control

Question 16

What are the characteristics of disorganised offenders?

Answer 16

• lower than average IQ
• in unskilled or semi-skilled occupations
• history of unsuccessful relationships or sexual dysfunction
• live alone and live close to where offence takes place

Question 17

What are the stages of constructing an FBI profile?

Answer 17

1. data assimilation - profiler reviews the evidence
2. crime scene classification - organised or disorganised
3. crime reconstruction

Question 18

Evaluate the Top Down Approach.

Answer 18

• only suited to crimes that reveal important details about suspect
• critics suggested that the approach is naïve and informed by old fashioned models of personality, poor validity
• Holmes (1989) suggests there’s 4 types of serial killer; visionary, mission, hedonistic and power
• small and unrepresentative sample

Question 19

What is the Bottom Up Approach?

Answer 19

• generates a picture of the offender (characteristics, behaviour, background)
• doesn’t begin with fixed typologies
• more grounded in psychological theory

Question 20

What is investigative psychology?

Answer 20

• attempt to apply psychological procedures alongside psychological theory to analysis of crime scene
• interpersonal coherence, way offender acts at scene, interact w/ victim and may reflect behaviour in everyday interactions

Question 21

What is geographical profiling?

Answer 21

• uses crime scene to predict characteristics of criminals profile
• Canter (1994) five main characteristics in profile; personality traits, criminal history, residential location, domestic and social characteristics, occupational and educational history

Question 22

What is the difference between the marauder and the commuter?

Answer 22

• marauders operate in close proximity to their own home

- commuters likely to have travelled a distance from their base

Question 23

Evaluate the Bottom Up Approach.

Answer 23

• evidence supports investigative psychology. Canter+Heritage (1990)
• more grounded in evidence and psychological theory
• wider application, can be used for less serious offences

Question 24

What is meant by atavistic form?

Answer 24

• Lombroso suggested there were ‘genetic throwbacks’ - criminals and non are biologically different
• offenders viewed as lacking evolutionary development

Question 25

What are considered atavistic characteristics?

Answer 25

• narrow sloping brow
• strong prominent jaw
• high cheekbones
• facial asymmetry

Question 26

What atavistic characteristics do murderers and sexual deviants have?

Answer 26

• murderers have bloodshot eyes, curly hair and long ears

- sexual deviants have glinting eyes, swollen fleshy lips and projecting ears

Question 27

What was Lombrosos research on Italian convicts?

Answer 27

• living and dead convicts
• 383 dead and 3839 living convicts were studied
• found that 40% of criminal acts could be accounted for by atavistic characteristics

Question 28

Evaluate the biological explanations of offending.

Answer 28

• Lombroso is credited with shifting crime research towards a more scientific realm.
• DeLisi (1912) drawn attention to racial undertones of the work, amny features are found among African descendants
• Lombroso didn’t compare his criminal group w/ control group
• facial and cranial differences may be influenced by poor diet, deprivation, poor health etc. rather than delayed evolutionary development

Question 29

What are the genetic explanations of offending?

Answer 29

• suggests that criminal inherit a gene or combo of genes that predispose them to commit crime
• Lange (1930) + Christiansen (1977) MZ and DZ twin studies, suggested geneitc factors play a role.
• Tiihonen et al (2014) those w/combo of MAOA and CDH13 genes were 13x more likely to have history of violent behaviour

Question 30

What is the diathesis-stress model?

Answer 30

• applied to schizophrenia

- criminal behaviour may come from combo of genetic predisposition and biological or psychological trigger

Question 31

What are the neural explanations of offending?

Answer 31

• Raine conducted many studies of APD brain reporting, anti-social personalities have reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex
• Keyers et al (2011) suggested APD individuals aren’t totally w/o empathy but may have neural switch that can turn on and off

Question 32

Evaluate genetic and neural explanations of offending.

Answer 32

• early twin studies had little control and zygosity was based on appearance rather than DNA testing
• separation of environmental and genetic factors in adoption studies is complicated, many were adopted late or seen biological parents regularly
• determinist; only in cases of mental illness can someone claim they aren’t acting under free will
• reductionist; reducing offending to neural or genetic influences is too simplistic

Question 33

What is Eysenck’s theory of criminal personality?

Answer 33

• Eysenck (1947) proposed behaviour could be represented in 2 dimensions: introversion/extroversion and neuroticism/ stability

Question 34

What is the biological basis for Eysenck’s theory?

Answer 34

• he believed personality traits have biological origin and come about from our nervous system that we inherit
• all personality types are innate