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Forensic Psychology Flashcards

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1
Q

What are the 2 types of offender profiling?

A
  • the top-down approach

- the bottom-up approach

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2
Q

What is the top-down approach?

A

is an analysis of previous crimes and creates a profile of a likely offender

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3
Q

What are the 6 steps in the top-down approach?

A 
1 - profiling input
2 - decision process models
3 - crime assessment
4 - criminal profile
5 - crime assessment
6 - apprehension
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4
Q

Explain step one in the top-down approach?

A

profiling input - collect data - e.g description of crime scene, backgrounds of victims and details of crime

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5
Q

Explain step two in the top-down approach?

A

decision process models - profiler decides what data is important and organises it

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6
Q

Explain step three in the top-down approach?

A

crime assessment - based on data the crime is classified as either organised or disorganised

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7
Q

Explain step four in the top-down approach?

A

criminal profile - profile is made of the offender which includes hypothesis and description of their possible background, habits and beliefs.

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8
Q

Explain step five in the top-down approach?

A

crime assessment - written report is given to the police and people who match the offender are evaluated. If no one is found then the process goes back to step 2

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9
Q

Explain step six in the top-down approach?

A

apprehension - if someone is arrested, than all hypothesis made are evaluated to make sure they were legitimate

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10
Q

What is an organised type of offender?

A

crime tends to be planned and the victim is specifically targeted

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11
Q

What is an unorganised type of offender?

A

crime is unplanned and victims are random

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12
Q

What are the advantages of the top-down approach?

A
  • useful - very popular police like it, 90% said they would use it again
    subjective - which causes experts to get it wrong and biased
    accuracy - when police were given fake description they thought more than 50% said it was accurate
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13
Q

What are the disadvantages of the top-down approach?

A
  • classification system might be too vague as only has 2 types - 3rd classification added ‘mixed’ offender. This is because in some cases there might be aspects of both and some crimes take place over a period of time which allows the criminal to evolve and change.
  • time consuming - if they don’t find someone who fits the profile then it goes back to step 2 and also the review at the end will take time. But the review is a good thing as it increases the accuracy of their judgements.
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14
Q

What is the bottom-up approach?

A

a data-driven approach where statistical techniques are used to produce predictions about likely characteristics of the offender

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15
Q

What are the 2 statistical techniques used in the bottom-up approach?

A
  • investigative psychology

- geographical profiling

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16
Q

What are the 5 features in interpersonal coherence (Canter’s 5 factor model)

A
  • interpersonal coherence
  • forensic awareness
  • time and place of the crime
  • criminals career
  • criminals characteristics
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17
Q

What is interpersonal coherence?

A

people are consistent in their behaviour, therefore there will links between the crime and the criminals everyday life

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18
Q

What is forensic awareness?

A

where offenders show an understanding of a police investigation as they are likely to have had previous encounters with the criminal justice system.

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19
Q

What are the 2 methods in geographical profiling?

A

circle theory

criminal geographical testing (CQT)

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20
Q

What is the circle theory?

A
  • Canter proposed that criminals have a spatial mindset - they commit their crime within a imagine circle e.g either from their home or from the place they travel to commit the crime
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21
Q

What is geographical profiling?

A

profiling based on the locations of the crimes

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22
Q

What is criminal geographical testing (CQT)?

A

is a computerised system which produces a 3D map relating to the time, distance and movement of the crime

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23
Q

What are the 2 biological explanations of offending behaviour?

A

historical approach

genetic and neural

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24
Q

What is included in the historical approach?

A

personality types

somatotypes

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25
Q

What is atavistic form?

A

an explanation for criminal behaviour, suggesting that certain individuals are born with a criminal personality and this innate personality is from primate forms.

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26
Q

What does atavistic form suggest about criminals?

A

that criminals share similar characteristics to lower primates

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27
Q

What is the evidence for atavistic form and criminality?

A

Lombroso used post-mortem examinations of criminals and studied the faces of living criminals. In one study he studied 338 convicted Italian criminals, he found out that 21% had one atavistic form and 43% had at least 5

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28
Q

What are the some of the characteristics?

A
  • large jaw
  • high cheekbones
  • large chins
29
Q

What are the genetic explanations of criminals?

A

propose that one or more genes predispose individuals to criminal behaviour.

30
Q

What is the evidence for genetic explanations?

A

comes from twin studies where identical and non-identical (MZ and DZ) twins are compared. They studied the delinquent behaviour of twins and found a 52% concordance for MZ twins and 21% for DZ twins

31
Q

What are the 2 genes which are associated with criminal behaviour?

A
  • MAOA

- CDH13

32
Q

What correlation does the MAOA gene have with offending behaviour?

A

MAOA causes aggression and breaks down 3 neurotransmitters ; noradrenaline, serotonin and dopamine

33
Q

What does the neural explanation suggest about offending behaviour?

A

consider hoe structures of the brain may be different in criminals as well as there being differences in neurotransmitter levels

34
Q

What are the regions of the brain associated with offending behaviour?

A
  • prefrontal cortex

- limbic system

35
Q

Why is the prefrontal cortex associated with offending behaviour?

A

is involved in regulating emotion and controlling moral behaviour

36
Q

Why is the limbic system associated with offending behaviour?

A

amygdala which is responsible for real pain and feelings of scared

37
Q

What is the study which supports that the regions of the brain increase the likelihood of offending behaviour?

A

Raine - compared 27 psychopaths to 32 non-psychopaths and found out that the psychopaths has a reduced function in their prefrontal cortex
also that the amygdala had an 18 % reduction in volume

38
Q

What are the 2 types of neurotransmitters which are associated with offending behaviour?

A

serotonin

noradrenaline

39
Q

Why is serotonin linked to offending behaviour?

A

low levels of serotonin causes increase in aggression because it inhibits the prefrontal cortex.

40
Q

Why is noradrenaline linked to offending behaviour?

A

high and low levels are associated with aggression and violence.

41
Q

What does Sheldon suggest about somatotypes?

A

says body shape can reflect criminal tendencies

42
Q

What are the 3 somatotypes?

A

mesomorph
ectomorph
endomorph

43
Q

What is the evidence for the biological explanations of offending behaviour?

A

Gage - who was a railway worker who had a rod go through his prefrontal lobes

  • he recovered physically but his personality changed, due to the frontal lobes being damaged which are responsible for personality
  • also we now know he recovered due to plasticity of the brain but at this time they didn’t
44
Q

What correlation does the CDH13 gene have with offending behaviour?

A

is associated with ADHD and connects the things in the brain

45
Q

What is the key study which supports the genetic explanation of offending behaviour?

A

Brunner

  • who did a study of violence in a family with genetic abnormalities
  • all males in the family had mental retardation and abnormal violent behaviour e.g arson, attempted rape
  • they examined the male members and compared them to normal family members
  • found that even the family members who were not criminal had the same characteristics
  • also all females in the family were normal
  • data was collected through urine samples and found out that there was a mutation on a recessive gene, which caused MAOA to be produced
46
Q

What is noradrenaline responsible for?

A

controls arousal

47
Q

What is dopamine responsible for?

A

emotional arousal

48
Q

What is serotonin responsible for?

A

sleep

49
Q

So what does higher levels of MAOA cause?

A

lower levels of noradrenaline, serotonin and dopamine

50
Q

What are the advantages of the genetic and neural explanation of offending behaviour?

A

scientific - urine samples are an objective way of collecting data on genes. Which increases the reliability of data and means that it is easily replicated

application - research showed that some deficits in neurotransmitters in the brain can cause aggressive behaviour and highlights that individuals should be monitored. Also allow the development of treatments which balance the level of serotonin and MAOA

51
Q

What are the disadvantages of the genetic and neural explanation of offending behaviour?

A

ethics - unethical to label people are potential criminals and to monitor their behaviour. It might cause people to become criminals because they believe that they are destined to

52
Q

What is the twin study which supports the genetic explanation of offending behaviour?

A

Lange :

  • MZ (identical) twins : 1/3 out of 30 had a twin in prison
  • DZ twins : 2 out 30 had a twin in prison

Christiansen :

  • MZ twins = 33%
  • DZ twins = 12%
53
Q

What is the twin study which supports the genetic explanation of offending behaviour?

A

Mendick
- 14427 Danish adoptees
- 13.5% were criminal with no criminal parents
- 14.7% were criminal with at least one criminal adoptive parent
- 20% were criminal with at least one criminal biological parent
- 24.5% were criminal with at least one adoptive and biological parent
Which shows that biological and environmental factors have an influence

54
Q

What is the diathesis stress model?

A

shows how the interaction of both genetic disposition and environmental effects increases the chances of criminal behaviour

55
Q

What did Eysenck do?

A

a personality test

56
Q

What did Eysenck suggest?

A

our personality traits come about due to our nervous system

57
Q

What did Eysenck do?

A

a personality test

58
Q

What did Eysenck suggest?

A

our personality traits come about due to our nervous system

59
Q

What is restorative justice?

A

A method of reducing offending behaviour through reconciliation (make up with) between the offender and victim

60
Q

What did Watchel and McCold do?

A

Created a theoretical framework - which focuses on relationships rather than punishment

61
Q

What are the restorative justice programmes?

A

Peace circles

62
Q

What are peace circles?

A
  • they are set up in communities where violence and crime levels are high
  • they aim to create an environment of respect where the community offers support to victims but also welcomed the offender into the circle to enable mutual understanding
63
Q

What are the steps in creating a peace circle?

A

1 - everyone sits in a circle
2 - take turns to speak
3 - there’s a ‘keeper’ whose task is to maintain a good atmosphere

64
Q

What did Eysenck theory say about extroverts?

A
  • underactive nervous system ; constantly seek excitement. Likely to engage in risk-taking behaviour
65
Q

What did Eysenck theory say about neurotics?

A
  • overactive nervous system ; anxious and largely unstable personality. Means their behaviour is hard to predict
66
Q

Is there any evidence that Eysenck’s theory links to criminality?

A
  • Eysenck assessed 2070 male prisoners who were compared to a control group of 2422 males
  • on measures of E, N, P prisoners recorded higher on P measures but not always E and N
67
Q

What did Farrington show?

A

that offenders have inconsistent EEG measures between E and I

68
Q

What does E, N and P stand for?

A

extraversion
neuroticism
psychoticism

69
Q

What are the advantages of the bottom-up approach?

A
  • more scientific that the top-down approach - because of the use of the objective statistical techniques and computer analysis. However its only effective when the data quality is good and not when the crime is unsolved.
  • useful - 75% of police officers

Psychology (11 decks)

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