forensics

Question 1

What is Offender Profiling?

Answer 1

it’s a behavioural and analytical tool used when trying to solve crimes. It’s intended to help investigators to narrow down the number of likely suspects of crime by predicting the probable characteristics.

Question 2

What is the top - down approach?

Answer 2

is when profilers have pre-existing conceptual categories of offenders in their minds. They then use the evidence from the crime to fit into either of these categories to classify the offenders as one-type or another.

Question 3

What is the bottom-up approach?

Answer 3

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

Question 4

What is the five factor model?

Answer 4

1. Interpersonal coherence.
2. time and place
3. criminal characteristics.
4. criminal career
5. forensic awareness

Question 5

What is Interpersonal coherence?

Answer 5

the consistency between the way offenders interact with their victims and with others in their everyday lives.

Question 6

Define time and place?

Answer 6

The time and location of an offender’s crime will communicate something about their own place of residence/ employment.

Question 7

Define Criminal characteristics?

Answer 7

Characteristics about the offender that can help to classify them.

Question 8

Define Criminal career

Answer 8

Crimes tend to be committed in similar fashion by offenders and can provide indication of how their criminal activity will develop.

Question 9

Define Forensic awareness

Answer 9

behaviours that show an understanding of a police investigation e.g not leaving DNA evidence behind.

Question 10

What is Geographical Profiling?

Answer 10

A form of bottom up profiling based on the pattern shown by the location or locations of a series of crime.

Question 11

What is Investigative Psychology?

Answer 11

A form of bottom-up profiling based on psychological theory.

Question 12

What are the 3 types of inadequate superego?

Answer 12

1. the weak/ underdeveloped superego
2. the deviant superego
3. the over-harsh/overdeveloped superego

Question 13

What are the 2 psychodynamic explanations of crime?

Answer 13

1. inadequate superego

2. maternal deprivation theory

Question 14

what is the differential association theory?

Answer 14

is a social learning theory crime proposed by Sutherland (1939), it suggests that individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for criminal behaviour through association and interaction with others who’ve more or less favourable attitudes towards crimes. these attitudes then influence their own criminal attitudes and behaviours.

Question 15

What is Extraversion?

Answer 15

According to Eysenck, this refers to outgoing people who enjoy risk and danger because their nervous systems are under-aroused.

Question 16

What is neuroticism?

Answer 16

this refers to people with a negative outlook that get upset easily. Their lack of stability is due to an over-reactive response to threat

Question 17

What is Psychoticism?

Answer 17

this refers to an aggressive, anti-social person who lacks empathy. This may be related to high levels of testosterone.

Question 18

What is Hostile attribution bias?

Answer 18

When a person automatically attributes malicious intentions to another.

Question 19

What is Minimalisation?

Answer 19

Underplaying the consequence of an action to reduce negative emotions such as feeling guilty.

Question 20

What is cognitive distortion?

Answer 20

Thinking that has a bias, such that what is perceived by a person doesn’t match reality.

Question 21

What is Moral reasoning?

Answer 21

Thinking in a consistent and logical way about the right and wrong, with reference to socially agreed principles.

Question 22

What are the levels of moral reasoning?

Answer 22

1. Pre-conventional level
2. Conventional level
3. Post- Conventional level

Question 23

What are the levels of moral reasoning?

Answer 23

1. pre-conventional level
2. conventional level
3. post-conventional level

Question 24

What are the two cognitive distortions?

Answer 24

Minimalisation and hostile attribution bias

Question 25

describe the conventional level of moral reasoning?

Answer 25

children accept the rules of authority figures and judge actions by their consequences. actions that result in punishments are bad, those that bring rewards are good.

Question 26

describe the conventional level of moral reasoning?

Answer 26

individuals continue to believe that conformity to social rules is desirable, but this not out of self-interest. maintaining the current social system ensures positive human relationships and social order.

Question 27

describe the post- conventional level of moral reasoning

Answer 27

individuals move beyond unquestioning compliance to the norms of the social system. the individuals now defines morality in terms of abstract moral principles that apply to all societies and situations

Question 28

evaluate psycho explanations: cognitive explanations

Answer 28

1. real - world application: understanding cognitive distortions can be used in treatment. Heller et al. (2013) worked with a group of young men who were mainly from disadvantaged groups in chicago. they used cognitive behavioural techniques to reduce judgement and decision making errors. those who attended 13 one hour sessions had a 44% reduction in arrests compared to the control group.
2. research support for minimisation: kennedy and grubin (1992) found that sex offenders’ accounts of their crimes often downplayed their behaviour. e.g, the offenders suggested that the victim’s behaviour contributed in some way to the crime. some also simply denied that a crime had been committed. maruna and mann (2006) suggested that this part of a fairly “normal” behaviour where all people try to blame events on external sources as a way to protect the self. supports the idea that cognitive distortion may underlie offending behaviour.
3. real - world application: he observed that children raised on israeli kibbutzim, which led him to suggest that belonging to a democratic group or being involved in making moral judgements facilitated moral developments. an excellent of putting theoretical ideas into practice concerning how to develop moral reasoning.

Question 29

eval differential association theory

Answer 29

1. major contribution - helped change people’s views about the origins of criminal behaviour. theory suggested that crime didn’t need to be explained in terms of personality but could be explained in terms of social experience. introduced “white collar crime” highlighting transgressions against laws committed by middle class people/
2. the role of biological factors: the absence of biological factors from this account is a drawback. the diathesis-stress model may offer a better account by contributing social factors with vulnerability factors. such vulnerability factors may be innate genetic ones, or it might be that early experiences act as a vulnerability. therefore this social approach on it’s own may be insuffcient.

Question 30

eval psychodynamic explanations

Answer 30

real- world application: bowlby drew the conclusion from his research that the findings had implications for prevention of delinquency. treatment of emotional problems in young delinquents is slow and difficult, so he suggested that is preferable to try to prevent the problem in the first place by avoiding early separations. he demonstrated that emotional separation is the key rather than physical separation. showed children coped reasonably well with separations from parents as long as alternative emotional care was provided. bowlby’s theory suggests that if you reduce early separation you reduce delinquency.

Question 31

eval eysenck’s theory

Answer 31

1. personality tests may lack validity - the questionnaires only contains close questions meaning “yes or no”. also self report social desirability bias. be cautious of evidence.
2. personality may not be consistent - someone may be neurotic at work but quiet and relaxed at home. walter mischel has supported this situational theory with research. Mischel and peake (1982) asked family, friends and strangers to rate 63 students in a variety of situations and found almost no correlation between traits displayed. Any regularity of behaviour is likely to be due to the fact we often tend to be in similar situations. notion of criminal personality is flawed as people don’t have one personality.