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forensic psychology Flashcards

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1
Q

crime

A

violation of the law where a consequence of conviction by a court is punishment (act or omission)

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2
Q

normative crime

A

breaking social norms

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3
Q

ways of measuring crime

A
  • official statistics
  • British Crime survey
  • offender surveys
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4
Q

official statistics

A
  • highly accessible and can be analysed
  • no specifics of the nature of the crime
  • lacks validity and doesn’t reflect cultural change
  • a lot of crimes are under reported
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5
Q

British Crime survey

A
  • ask 50,000 people about crimes they’ve experienced in the last year
  • high in detail and validity and context
  • untruthful and they’re values may influence their answers
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6
Q

offender surveys

A
  • people voluntarily submit information about crimes
  • focus on at risks group aged 10-25
  • untruthful and may conceal larger crimes
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7
Q

Lombroso study (1876)

A
  • studied facial and cranial features of 383 dead and 3839 living criminals
  • 40% had atavistic, abnormal traits
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8
Q

atavistic traits

A
  • unusual head shape/size
  • dark skin
  • nose curled up
  • abnormal teeth
  • strange eyes
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9
Q

Lombroso evaluation

A
  • Delisi (2012) traits are more typical in non-white races

- no control group to compare to

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10
Q

Somatotype theory

A

Sheldon (1942) identified 3 body types which he believed underpinned human psychology

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11
Q

3 body types:

A
  1. endomorph
  2. mesomorph
  3. ectomorph
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12
Q

endomorph

A
  • increased fat storage
  • large bones and wide waist
  • viscerotonic personalities (extravert)
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13
Q

mesomorph

A
  • square and muscular

- semitonic personalities (aggressive)

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14
Q

ectomorph

A
  • thin and athletic

- cerebrotonic personalities (introverted)

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15
Q

Somatotype theory explaining crime

A
  • criminal behaviour correlated with mesomorph body type

- high aggression and low sensitivity caused criminal behaviour

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16
Q

evaluation of Somatotype theory

A
  • reductionist as ignores other affecting factors

- could be correlation not causation

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17
Q

Lange (1930)

A
  • studied 13 MZ twins and 17 DZ twins with one twin who had served time
  • 10/13 of MZ had a twin in prison
  • 2/17 of DZ had a twin in prison
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18
Q

Christiansen (1977)

A
  • studied over 3500 pairs of twins in Denmark to find concordance rates of criminal behaviour
  • male MZ twins had 35% and DZ twins had 13%
  • female MZ twins had 21% and DZ twins had 8%
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19
Q

Tiihonen (2014)

A
  • analysed genes in 500 offenders
  • found those with low activity MAOA genes and CDH13 genes were 13 times more likely to have a history of violent behaviour
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20
Q

CDH13 gene

A

associated with substance abuse and ADHD

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21
Q

MAOA

A

helps the re-uptake of neurotransmitters

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22
Q

Brunner (1883)

A
  • 28 males in a Dutch family had been involved in violent crimes
  • they all had the warrior gene, low levels of MAOA causing heightened aggression and ADD
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23
Q

Raine et al (2000)

A

compared neural activity with murderers with anti-social personality disorder and non-criminals

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24
Q

Raine et al findings

A
  • APD sample had less activity in the frontal lobe and pre-frontal cortex
  • areas associated with self restraint and rational thinking
  • APD sample showed an 11% reduction in grey matter volume in the pre-frontal cortex
  • matter involved in sensory perception and self control
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25
Q

Keysers (2011)

A

found criminals could empathise when asked but otherwise only did it sporadically, which shows a ‘neural switch’

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26
Q

Mednick (1984)

A

studied 11,000 Danish adoptees with at least 1 court conviction

  • 13% had neither parents with a conviction
  • 20% had one of biological parents with a conviction
  • 24.5% had both biological and adoptive parents with a conviction
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27
Q

evaluation of twin studies

A
  • zygosity was based on appearance and not DNA so lacks validity
  • small sample can’t be generalised
  • twins aren’t very representative
  • nurture not nature
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28
Q

diathesis stress model

A

genetics and environment are likely to have an effect on behaviour

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29
Q

biological reductionism

A
  • emotional instability
  • mental illness
  • social deprivation
  • MZ twins don’t show 100% concordance
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30
Q

monozygotic twins

A

identical twins

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31
Q

dizygotic twins

A

non-identical twins

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32
Q

Eysenck’s theory

A

behaviour can be represented along 2 dimensions: introversion/extraversion and neuroticism/stability

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33
Q

extraversion

A

a person with a high biological need for environmental stimulation and a low level of arousal

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34
Q

introversion

A

a low biological need for environmental stimulation

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35
Q

neuroticism

A

is the stability of one’s personality and have lower activation thresholds biologically

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36
Q

psychoticism

A

associated with aggression, non - conformity, anger and impulsiveness which is linked with higher levels of testosterone

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37
Q

Kohlberg

A

summarised the development of moral reasoning in 3 stages;

  1. pre conventional
  2. conventional
  3. post conventional
38
Q

pre-conventional level

A
  • approach a moral problem from the interests of individuals
  • criminals are seen as egocentric
  • offending is justified if punishment is avoided and if the benefits outweigh the costs
39
Q

conventional level

A
  • approach a problem as a member of society
  • take into account societies expectations
  • offending is justified if it maintains relationships and is sanctioned by a social institution
40
Q

post-conventional level

A

a moral problem is considered from above society perspective and sees moral principles, not just laws

41
Q

Schonenberg and Justye (2014)

A

55 violent offenders were more likely to interpret emotionally ambiguous faces as aggressive angry or hostile in comparison to a non-aggressive control group

42
Q

Dodge and Frame (1982)

A
  • showed children a video of an ambiguous provocation where the intention was not hostile or accidental
  • children labelled as aggressive showed greater hostile attribution bias
43
Q

Pollock and Hashmall (1991)

A

35% of a sample of child molesters minimised their crimes by believing they were being affectionate

44
Q

Edwards, Bradshaw and Hinsz (2014)

A

31.7% of college-aged men said they had an intention to force a women to have sex with them if they could get away with it

45
Q

Thorton and Reid

A
  • found people who committed financial crimes had pre-conventional morality
  • impulsive crime tends to be associated with no reasoning at all
46
Q

Oedipus complex

A

boys desire their mothers sexually but fear their fathers

47
Q

electra complex

A

girls compete with their mothers as they consider their own sex inferior and suffer penis envy

48
Q

Blackburn (1993)

A

argues a deficient superego means the id may be dominant and will lead to criminality

49
Q

Blackburn’s 3 concepts

A
  1. a weak superego - develops if a parent is absent during the phallic stage so the child never resolves their complex
  2. socialisation - a child internalises deviant morals and values from parents
  3. overly-harsh - strict parents cause their child to be riddled with guilt and thin they deserve punishment
50
Q

differential association

A

through interaction with others we learn values, skills and motives necessary for crime

51
Q

Sutherland (1939)

A

developed scientific principles to explain all types of offending and predicted 2 prerequisites to crime:

  1. learning criminal values
  2. learning specific behaviours
52
Q

predicting crime

A
  • based on frequency, intensity and duration of exposure to deviant values
  • prisons and detention centres become ‘universities of crime’
  • more knowledge of crimes mean they’re more likely to commit crime
53
Q

4 factors that cause crime

A
  1. attention
  2. retention
  3. reproduction
  4. motivation
54
Q

evaluation of differential association

A
  • changed peoples views from the biological view
  • less deterministic as doesn’t blame individual factors
  • creates a more useful, positive implication for society as it’s not innate
55
Q

the 4 aims of prison

A
  1. incapacitation
  2. retribution
  3. rehabilitation
  4. deterrence
56
Q

effects of prison

A
  • institutionalisation
  • brutalisation
  • seperation anxiety
57
Q

institutionalisation

A

adopting norms and values to fit in to prison makes it impossible to cope with real life as it leads to a lack of autonomy and dependency culture

58
Q

brutalisation

A

70% of young offenders recommit within 2 years as they adopt the criminal values of prison and become better criminals

59
Q

seperation anxiety

A

prisoners away from their family develop mood disorders like anxiety and depression therefore theres more than 60,000 self harm incidents a year in prison

60
Q

top-down approach

A
  • American approach
  • look for behavioural evidence and why the offender acted that way
  • start with the big picture and narrow it down with more details
61
Q

Hazlewood and Douglas (1980)

A

created a profile for a killer and organised crimes largely into 2 categories; organised and disorganised

62
Q

organised crime

A
  • attempts to control the victim
  • any mess cleared up
  • pre meditated
  • any trace of them gone from the crime scene
63
Q

organised criminal characterstics

A
  • above average IQ
  • socially and sexually competent
  • experiencing anger/depression at the the time of the attack
  • follows media coverage of the crime
64
Q

disorganised crime

A
  • body left how it was killed
  • impulsive
  • minimum use of constraint
  • the weapon still there
65
Q

disorganised criminal characterstics

A
  • lives alone, near the crime scene
  • socially and sexually inadequate
  • abused in childhood
  • frightened and confused at the time of attack
66
Q

crime timeframe

A
  1. data assimilation
  2. crime classification
  3. crime reconstruction
  4. profile creation
67
Q

bottom - up approach

A

David Canter - work up from collected evidence to develop hypothesises about likely characteristics, motivations and background of offender

68
Q

John Duffy

A
  • sexual assaults and murder in London
  • these were grouped on the map as were all near railways at weird times of night
  • helped link the offences to him who lived in the area and worked for the rail company
69
Q

geographical profiling

A

used to make inferences about where the offender might live

70
Q

Canter’s circle theory (1993)

A

offenders are either marauders or commuters
marauders = operates in a familiar area close to home
commuter = operates at a distance from where they live

71
Q

interpersonal coherence

A

crime reflects our personality all the time, so the way we treat others in everyday life

72
Q

Rachel Nickell

A
  • was murdered and bottom up approach led to Colin Stagg being targeted
  • staged a covert operation to get a confession from him as he perfectly fit the profile
  • however it was actually Robert Napper who was already convicted for murder but his height didn’t fit the profile
73
Q

Canter and Heritage (1999)

A

analysis of 66 sexual assault cases using smallest space analysis identified clear patterns of behaviour

74
Q

Lundrigan and Canter (2001)

A

evidence from 120 murders reflected the offenders home location was central to the crime scene

75
Q

Novaco (1975)

A

was the first to suggest that cognitive factors may trigger emotional arousal that precedes aggressopn

76
Q

3 stages of anger management

A
  1. cognitive preparedness
  2. skills acquisition
  3. application practice
77
Q

cognitive preparedness

A

patients identify triggers in past events and the irrational beliefs they had, so they can re-identify the situation as non threatening

78
Q

skills acquisiton

A

patients develop different techniques:

  • physiological = relaxation
  • behavioural = rational strategies
  • cognitive = positive self talk and calmness
79
Q

application practice

A

patients replay past events and use new calming techniques to resolve these and be rewarded with praise

80
Q

Howells (2005)

A
  • 418 male offenders were given anger management
  • results were still present after 2 months
  • however the improvement was very small for the expensive and long therapy
81
Q

token economy

A

is a scheme designed to reinforce obedient behaviour and punish disobedient behaviour through operant conditioning

82
Q

primary reinforcers

A

encourage the primary drives, like food, water and shelter

83
Q

secondary reinforcers

A

are not needed for survival, so things like money and have no intrinsic value in prison so can’t be exchanged for primary reinforcers

84
Q

how token economy is implemented

A
  1. the desirable behaviour is identified
  2. the behaviour is broken down into achievable steps
  3. the tariff for the desirable behaviour is identified
85
Q

Rice et al (1990)

A

studied 92 men in a maximum security prison and found 50% of men treated using token economy reoffended

86
Q

evaluation of token economy

A
  • doesn’t create a deep change of morals and values
  • only works in the context of prison
  • degrading and unethical as people are scared of punishment
    + cheaper and easier for inmates
    + not much training is needed
87
Q

restorative justice

A

new scheme in the UK where the offender comes face to face with their victims as a form of rehabilitation and taking responsibilities for their actions

88
Q

key features of restorative justice

A
  1. restoration
  2. voluntarism
  3. neutrality
  4. safety
  5. active positivity
89
Q

Restorative Justice Council

A

they mediate and establish clear standards and advocate the use of this in other contexts like schools

90
Q

evaluation of restorative justice

A
  • not suitable for all crime
  • ethical issues of finding out information they didn’t want to know
  • easy way out for offenders
    + considers all aspects of the context of crime
    + recognises free will and change in behaviour
91
Q

Shapland (2007)

A

for every £1 spent on restorative justice, it would save the criminal justice system £8 in re-offending fees

Psychology (10 decks)

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