Forensics

Question 1

What are the two pre-existing typologies of offenders

Answer 1

1. Organised offenders
2. Disorganised offenders

Question 2

What is the top-down approach

Answer 2

• A top-down approach (TDA) is used when pre-determined theories or ideas are applied to data - in the case of offender profiling the data comes in the form of the crime scene
• The TDA is also known as the American approach to offender profiling as it was developed, primarily, by the American FBI
• The TDA was based on interviews conducted with 36 violent offenders, which included some notorious serial killers who mainly committed sexually motivated murders

Question 3

Characteristics of an organised vs unorganised offender

Answer 3

Question 4

What are the personality traits of an organised offender

Answer 4

• are likely to have a high IQ and be in a professional or skilled occupation
• are socially competent and have several friends and colleagues
• are likely to be in a relationship
• may have been suffering from some kind of negative mental state e.g. depression, anxiety, anger when the crime was committed
• are aware of media interest in and coverage of the crime (some offenders may even communicate with the police or media as a way of prolonging their involvement in the crime)

Question 5

What are the personality traits of a disorganised offender

Answer 5

• are likely to have a low IQ and be in an unskilled or semi-skilled occupation (or unemployed)
• are socially incompetent with few friends and colleagues
• are likely to live alone or have a problematic relationship history
• are likely to have been abused as a child
• are likely to show confusion, fear and panic at the crime scene and in general when confronted with stressful situations
• are more likely to live near the crime scene

Question 6

Offender profiling def

Answer 6

A behavioural and analytical tool that is intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile characteristics of unknown criminals

Question 7

What are the 4 stages of constructing an FBI profile (according to the top-down approach)

Answer 7

Question 8

Evaluation of the top-down approach

Answer 8

• only applies to particular crimes (rape, arson) and not more common offences (burglary and destruction of property). So is a limited approach so lacks generalisability
• the approach is based on an outdated model of personality which sees behaviour as being driven by stable dispositional traits, rather than external factors that may be constantly changing. Therefore it is likely to be outdated and may lack validity when it comes to identifying possible suspects and trying to predict their next move.
• The TDA is based on interview data from 36 serial killers in the 1970s which means that it lacks temporal validity and may suffer from several types of bias (e.g. social desirability bias, confirmation bias) which would damage the validity of the approach

Question 9

Describe the bottom-up (or British) approach and how investigate psychology fits into this

Answer 9

• The bottom-up approach to offender profiling contrasts to the top-down approach as developed by the FBI in the USA as it is ‘data-driven’
• ‘Data-driven’ means that the BUA does not begin with the assumption that each crime will fit into a typology; instead it uses the crime scene as the basis for the creation of a profile
• The BUA is inductive as it aims to develop a theory from the data presented
• The BUA starts the process of profiling using small, possibly seemingly irrelevant details from the crime scene and uses them to create the ‘bigger picture’, making no assumptions as to the offender
• The BUA is popularly known as the British approach to profiling as it was devised by a British researcher, Professor David Canter
• Canter’s methods involve the cross-referencing of crime-scene details to determine the composition of the offender profile via use of statistical methods, known as investigative psychology (IP)
• The statistical system used in the BUA is known as ‘smallest space analysis’ using evidence from the crime scene which finds a correlation of the behaviours that occurred most frequently across offences

Question 10

Describe the assumptions made in investigate psychology

Answer 10

• Investigative psychology is the bottom-up approach to profiling developed by David Canter
• Key assumptions made by this approach include:

interpersonal coherence (there is a consistency between the way offenders interact with their victims and with others in their everyday lives);

time and place (the time and location of an offender’s crime will communicate something about their own place of residence/employment);

criminal characteristics (characteristics about the offender can help to classify them, which helps the police investigation).

Question 11

Describe geographical profiling

Answer 11

• Geographical profiling (GP), also known as ‘crime mapping’ is a key aspect of the BUA.
• GP is used to analyse the geographical locations of offences which appear to be linked (committed by the same offender)
• GP can be used alongside investigative psychology to develop a profile as together these two systems form a complete picture of the likely offender
• GP operates along the assumption that serial offenders fall into two categories: marauders or commuters
• Marauders commit crimes within their neighbourhood, not far from where they live/work possibly as this is where they feel safe plus they are more likely to know the escape routes to exit the scene as quickly as possible
• Commuters commit crimes away from their neighbourhood which may be as a result of travelling a lot for work or as a way of avoiding detection

Question 12

Evaluation of the bottom-up approach

Answer 12

• Much research - particularly by Canter (alone or with colleagues) supports the effectiveness of the BUA in identifying and (more importantly) apprehending dangerous offenders
• The BUA takes a more objective approach than the TDA (which uses as its basis the results of interviews conducted over 50 years ago) with its use of statistical methods which means that it is more reliable than other approaches to profiling
• Kocsis et al. (2002) tested the profiling skills of various police professionals compared to a sample of Chemistry students: the Chemistry students produced the most accurate profiles (interestingly the more experienced the police professionals were, the more inaccurate their profiles were) hence profiling may involve little more than guesswork
• When profiling goes wrong it can be catastrophic: British psychologist Paul Britton’s profile of the killer of Rachel Nickell completely derailed the police investigation and resulted in the murderer going on to claim more victims

Question 13

What is an atavistic form (the biological explanation of offender profiling)

Answer 13

A biological approach to offender profiling that explains criminal activity as being a result of poor genetics. It suggests that offenders are a primitive sub-species which may have lacked evolutionary development. This is why they are unable to copy with the demands of a civilised society and inevitably turn to crime.

The approach suggests that offenders can be identified by certain facial features such as curly hair, long ears and glinting eyes.

Question 14

Describe the Atavistic form as founded by Lombroso

Answer 14

– Lombroso founded the atavistic form which historically moves criminology into a more rigorous and scientific realm and his ideas may have laid the foundation for the modern offender profiling techniques (Top down and bottom up approach)
– Lombroso determined atavistic characteristics that make criminals different from the rest of us – these included murderers having bloodshot eyes, curly hair and long wears – sexual deviants had glinting eyes, swollen fleshy lips and projecting ears – and fraudsters were thin.
– Lambroso’s research: Lambroso examined the facial and cranial features of thousands of Italian conflicts, both living and dead, and proposed that the atavistic form was associated with a number of physical anomalies which are key indicators of criminality. He concluded that 40% of criminal acts could be accounted for by atavistic characteristics. He didn’t use a control group to compare.

Question 15

What are examples of the atavistic characteristics as suggested by Lambroso

Answer 15

• dark skin
• facial asymmetry
• high cheekbones
• insensitivity to pain
• use of criminal slang
• tattoos
• unemployment

MURDERERS:
- Bloodshot eyes
- Curly hair
- Long ears

SEXUAL DEVIANTS:
- Glinting eyes
- Swollen, fleshy lips

Question 16

Evaluation of the atavistic form as suggested by Lambroso

Answer 16

– A strength of the atavistic form is its contribution to criminology. He is credited to shift the emphasis of crime research away from a more realistic view toward a more scientific and credible realm. In this way his views have had a major contribution to the science of criminology
- the approach can be seen as racist As there are many racial undertones in atavistic features that Lambroso identified. However, some value can be seen in this limitation as it prevents future repetition of racism in research.
- His ideas that offenders struggle to adjust to society is faulty because immigrants may have similar struggles, yet they do not usually turn to crime.
– There is poor control in Lambroso’s research. Lambroso did not compare his criminal sample with a non-criminal control group. It is possible that, if he had done so, the significant differences in atavistic form that Lambroso reported may have disappeared. Many of the criminals he studied had suffered from a history of psychological and physical disorders which may have altered the findings and these were not taken into account.

Question 17

Contradictory study to Lambroso’s atavistic form

Answer 17

Question 18

Genetic definition

Answer 18

Genes are inherited and they affect DNA. DNA instruct our physical makeup. This includes brain structure, which affects intelligence, thought patterns and other psychological processes.

Question 19

Describe the genetic explanations for criminal behaviour

Answer 19

TWIN STUDIES:
-Christiansen (1977) studied 87 MZ and 147 DZ pairs and found a concordance in offending behaviour of 33% for MZs and 12% for DZs

CANDIDATE GENES:
- The MAOA Gene controls dopamine and serotonin production. It has been associated with violent crimes
- The CDHI3 Gene has been linked to substance abuse and ADHD.
- Tilhohen et al (2014) did a genetic analysis of 800 offenders and found that 5-10% of all violent crimes in Finland were due to these genes.

DIATHESIS-STRESS MODEL:
- if genetics have an impact on offending, it is likely that this is at least partly influenced by the environment. A tendency towards criminal behaviour may come about through the combination of genetic predisposition and a trigger such as being raised in a dysfunctional environment or having criminal role models.
- Diathesis: Biological factors (e.g. genes, biochemistry), Psychological factors (e.g. Unconscious conflicts)
- Stress: Biological factors (e.g. poor diet, use of drugs), Social factors (e.g trauma), psychological factors (e.g. violation of trust)

Question 20

Describe the neural explanations for criminal behaviour

Answer 20

PREFRONTAL CORTEX:
- This cortex is associated with emotion and empathy
- Raine et al: reported several brain images of offenders with APD having less developed prefrontal cortexes. There was a 11% reduced grey matter in the prefrontal cortex.

AMYGDALA:
- The most important part of the limbic system for many emotions, including aggression.

MIRROR NEURONS:
- Allow us to have empathy
- Switched on by default
- Keysers et al (2011): found that criminals could only empathise when told to. So people with APD can have empathy, but do so sporadically and by ‘choice’

Question 21

Neural explanation definition

Answer 21

Any explanation of behaviour (and its disorders) in terms of (dys)function of the brain and nervous system. This includes the activity of brain structures such as the hypothalamus, and brain structures such as serotonin and dopamine

Question 22

Evaluate the genetic explanations of crime

Answer 22

• Problems with adoption studies: The presumed separation of genetic and environmental influences in adoption studies are complicated by the fact that many children experience late adoption, which means much of their infancy and childhood may have been spent with their biological parents. Therefore it makes it difficult to assess the environmental impact the biological parents may have had as many adoptees maintain regular contact with their biological parents following their adoption.
• Biological reductionism: Katz et al found that crime does appear to run in families but so does emotional instability, mental illness and social deprivation. This makes it difficult to disentangle the effects of jeans and neural influences from other possible factors. Criminality is complex – explanations that reduce behaviour to only being caused by genes or neural functions may be inappropriate and overly simplistic.

Question 23

Describe Eysencks’ theory of the criminal personality

Answer 23

THE CRIMINAL PERSONALITY:
- An individual who scores highly on measures of extra version, neuroticism and psychoticism (cannot be easily conditioned, is cold and unfeeling), and is likely to engage in offending behaviour.

BIOLOGICAL BASIS:
- Our personality traits are biological in origin and come about through the type of nervous system we inherit.
- Therefore, all personality types, including the criminal personality type, have an innate biological basis.
- Extraverts have an underactive nervous system (AMYGDALA) which means they constantly seek excitement, stimulation and are likely to engage in risk taking behaviours. They also tend not to condition easily and do not learn from their mistakes.
- Neurotic individuals tend to be nervous, jumpy and over anxious and their general instability means their behaviour is often difficult to predict.

THE ROLE OF SOCIALISATION:
- Criminal behaviour is due to immature development - it is selfish and concerned with immediate gratification, they are impatient and cannot wait for things
- The process of socialisation is one in which children are taught to become more able to delay gratification and more socially orientated
- Eysenck believed that people with high E and N scores had nervous systems that made them difficult to condition.
- As a result, they would learn easily to respond to antisocial impulses with anxiety. Consequently, they would be more likely to act antisocially in situations where the opportunity presented itself.

Question 24

Evaluate Eysenck’s theory of criminal personality

Answer 24

• STRENGTH: evidence to support. Eysenck and Eysenck (1977) compared 2070 male prisoners scores on the EPI with 2422 male controls. On measures of psychoticism, extra version and neuroticism across all age groups, prisoners scored higher scores than controls. A big sample and age range was used. This accords to predictions of the theory.
• LIMITATION: The idea that offending behaviour can be explained by a single criminal type has been criticised. Moffitt proposed several distinct types of adult male offenders, based on the timing of the first offence and how long offending persists. This is an example of research opposing Eysenck’s overly simplistic view. In reality, multiple combinations of criminal types are present and therefore a high E and N score does not mean offending behaviour is inevitable.
• LIMITATION: The criminal personality is built on the premise that it is possible to measure personality through the use of psychological test. Critics have suggested that personality type may not be reducible to a ‘score’ in this way; indeed, many argue there is no such thing as personality- the sense of a stable entity. However, personality tests does make personality measurable which means that test-retest can be used to assess the reliability of Eysenck’s personality test. Nevertheless, on a daily basis, we play many different parts and our personality may change depending on who we are with and the situation we are involved in.

Question 25

Moral reasoning def

Answer 25

Moral reasoning refers to the process by which an individual draws upon their own value system to determine whether an action is right or wrong.

Kohlberg attempted to objectify this process by indentifying different levels of reasoning, based on people’s answers to moral dilemmas

Question 26

What are the three moral dilemmas

Answer 26

1. Cognitive distortions: faulty, biased and irrational ways of thinking than mean we perceive ourselves, other people and the world in accurately and usually negatively
2. Hostile attribution bias: The tendency to judge ambiguous situations, or the actions of others, as and or threatening when in reality they may not be
3. Minimalisation: A type of deception that involves downplaying the significance of an event or emotion. A common strategy with feelings of guild

Question 27

Describe the cognitive explanations of criminal behaviour (Kohlberg)

Answer 27

LEVEL OF MORAL REASONING:
Kohlberg was the first researcher to apply moral reasoning to criminal behaviour.
- Kohlberg proposed that people’s decisions and judgements on issues right and wrong can be summarised in a stage theory of moral development, the higher the stage, the more sophisticated the reasoning.
- Kohlberg et al (1973), using his moral dilemma technique, found that a group of violent youths were significantly lower in their moral development than non-violent youths, even after controlling for social background

KOHLBERG’S MODEL AND CRIMINALITY
Criminal offenders are more likely to be classified at the preconventional level of Kohlberg’s model (Stage 1 and 2) Where is non-criminals have generally progress to the conventional level and beyond
– the preconventional level is with less mature and childlike reasoning. Therefore, adults and adolescents who reason at this level may commit crime, if they can get away with or gain rewards in the form of money, increased respect etc.
– This is supported by studies which suggests that offenders are often more egocentric (self-centred) and display poorer social perspective taking skills the non-offender peers (e.g. Chandler 1973)
– Individuals who reason at higher levels tend to sympathise more with the rights of others and exhibit more conventional behaviours such as honesty, generosity and non-violence.

Question 28

What are the three levels of morality as suggested by Kohlberg

Answer 28

Question 29

Describe the idea of cognitive distortions

Answer 29

– Cognitive distortions are errors or bases in peoples information processing system, characterised by fault thinking
– We all occasionally show evidence of faulty thinking when explaining our behaviour, but research has links to the way in which criminals interpret other peoples behaviour and justify their own actions
– two examples of cognitive distortions are – hostile attribution bias and minimalisation

Question 30

Describe the two types of cognitive distortions – hostile attribution bias and minimalisation

Answer 30

HOSTILE ATTRIBUTION BIAS:
– assuming others are being confrontational when they are not
– offenders may misread non-aggressive cues (e.g being looked at) And this may trigger a disproportionate, often violent, response
– 55 violent offenders were presented with images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions
– When compared with a non-aggressive matched control group, violent offenders were significantly more likely to perceive the images as angry and hostile

MINIMALISATION:
– Minimalisation is an attempt to deny or downplay the seriousness of an offence. For example, burglars may describe themselves as ‘doing a job’ or ‘supporting my family’ as a way of minimising the seriousness of the offences
– Studies suggest that individuals who commit sexual offences are particularly prone to minimalisation. Among 26 Convicted rapists, 54% denied that they had committed an offence at all and a further 40% minimise the harm that they had cause to the victim
– similarly, 35% of a sample of child molesters argued that the crime they had committed was non-sexual (showing affection) and 36% stated that the victim had consented

Question 31

Evaluate the levels of moral reasoning

Answer 31

The brightest stars have very short lifetimes (a few million years)
These stars use up nuclear fuel at a much higher rate
The dimmest stars have extremely long lifetimes in comparison (~1012 years)
These stars use up nuclear fuel at a much slower rate
Stars on the main sequence with high luminosities are massive and very bright
A star that is 106 times brighter than the Sun will use up its nuclear fuel 106 times faster than the Sun

Question 32

Evaluate the levels of moral reasoning

Answer 32

• Conflicting theories: E-Gibbs proposed a revised version of Kohlberg’s theory comprising of two levels of reasoning: mature and immature. Gibbs argued that Kohlberg’s post conventional level should be abandoned because of its cultural bias.
• Practical application: Understanding the nature of cognitive distortions has proven beneficial in the treatment of criminal behaviour. The dominant approach in the rehabilitation of sex offenders in cognitive behavioural therapy which establishes a less distorted view of their actions. This helps criminals accept faults of their crimes which is an important aspect of rehabilitation programmes such as anger management
• Individual differences: Research has found that individuals who committed crimes for financial gain, such as robbery, were more likely to show pre-conventional moral reasoning than those convicted of compulsive crimes such as assault where reasoning of any kind tended not to be evident

Question 33

State and describe the 4 types of cognitive distortion

Answer 33

Question 34

differential association theory def

Answer 34

an explanation for offending which proposes that through interaction with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for criminal behaviour

Question 35

Describe the motives of Sutherland’s differential association theory

Answer 35

• Sutherland wanted to create a set of scientific principles that could explain all offending
• His theory discriminates between individuals who become criminals and those who do not, whatever their race, class or ethnic background

Question 36

Describe the components of Sutherland’s differential association theory

Answer 36

CRIME AS LEARNED BEHAVIOUR:
- Offending behaviour may be acquired in the same way as other behaviour - through the process of learning.
- This learning occurs through the interactions with significant others that the child associates with, such as family/ peer group
- criminality arises from two factors; learned attitudes towards crime, and the learning of specific acts
- the greater the frequency, duration and intensity of the criminal contact, the more likely the person is to become a criminal

LEARNING CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR
- In addition to being exposed to pro-criminal attitudes, the offender may also learn particular techniques for committing crime
- Sutherland’s theory can also account for why so many convicts released from prison go on to reoffend (RECEDIVISM)
- It is reasonable to assume that whilst inside prison inmates will learn specific techniques from each other, more experienced criminals that they may be eager to put into practice upon their release.
- This learning may occur through observational learning and imitation, or direct tuition from criminal peers.

Question 37

Evaluate Sutherland’s differential explanation theory

Answer 37

– STRENGTH: Osborne and West (1982) found that 40% of the sons of convicted criminals also had convictions by the age of 18, whereas only 13% of sons of non-criminal fathers had a conviction.
– STRENGTH: The theory accounts for crime within all sectors of society. While Sutherland recognised that some types of crime, such as burglary may be clustered within certain inner cities, working-class communities, it is also the case that some crimes are more prevalent amongst more affluent groups in society. This means that the theory gives an insight into the norms and values of the type of people who normally commit to corporate crimes. This knowledge would support police with interviewing potential corporate crime suspects.
–LIMITATION: The theory is difficult to test. Sutherland promised to provide a scientific, mathematical framework within which future offending behaviour could be predicted, differential association theory suffers from being difficult to test. Genetic and neural explanations of offending behaviour can be argued to be more scientific due to the use of technology such as brain scans.
–LIMITATION: not everyone who is exposed to criminal influences goes on to commit crime. There is a danger within differential Association theory of stereotyping individuals who come from impoverished backgrounds as unavoidably criminal. The theory suggests a deterministic outlook, the exposure to pro-criminal values is sufficient to produce offending in those who are exposed. It ignores the fact that people have free will.

Question 38

Psychodynamic explanations def

Answer 38

Question 39

What are the two features of the psychodynamic explanation of offending

Answer 39

• the inadequate superego
• the maternal deprivation theory

Question 40

Describe the inadequate superego as a part of the psychodynamic explanation of offending

Answer 40

• the superego, alongside the id and ego, make up the tripartite structure of personality
• The superego is formed at the end of the phallic stage of development when children resolve the Oedipus complex
• The superego works on the morality principle and exerts it’s influence by punishing the ego through guilt for wrongdoing, whilst rewarding it with pride for moral behaviour

BLACKBURN (1993) SUGGESTED:
If the superego is somehow deficient or inadequate then criminal behaviour is inevitable because the id is given ‘free rein’ and not properly controlled. Three types of inadequate superego have been proposed:
1) The weak superego - if the same sex parent is absent during the phallic stage, the child cannot internalise a fully formed superego as there is no opportunity for identification
2) The deviant superego - if the superego that the child internalises has immoral or deviant values, this would lead to offending behaviour. For example, a boy with a criminal father is less likely to associate guilt with offending.
3) The over-harsh superego - a healthy superego is like a kind but firm internal parent: it has rules, but it is also forgiving of transgressions. In contrast, an excessively harsh superego means the individual is crippled with guilt and anxiety. This may (unconsciously) drive the individual to perform criminal acts in order to satisfy the superego’s overwhelming need for punishment.

Question 41

Describe maternal deprivation as a part of the psychodynamic explanation of offending

Answer 41

• Bowlbys (1944) argued that the ability to form meaningful relationships in adulthood was dependant upon the child forming a warm, continuous relationship with a mother figure.
• The maternal bond was seen by Bowlby as unique, superior to any other, and vital to the child’s well being and development. Failure to establish such a bond during the first few years of life means that the child will experience a number of damaging and irreversible consequences in later life.
• One of these is the development of a specific personality type, known as affectionless psychopathy, characterised by lack of guilt, empathy and feelings for others.
• Such maternally developed individuals are likely to engage in acts of delinquency and cannot develop close relationships with others, as they lack the necessary early experience to do so.

EVIDENCE
- 44 juvenile thieves (Bowlby, 1944) supported his claims
- He found, through interviews with thieves and their families, that 14 of the sample he studied showed personality and behavioural characteristics that could be classified as ‘affectionless psychopathy’.
- 12/14 of these has experienced prolonged separation from their mothers during infancy.
- In a non-criminal group, only two had experienced similar early separation. Bowlby concluded that the effects of maternal deprivation had caused affectionless and delinquent behaviour among juvenile thieves

Question 42

Evaluate the psychodynamic explanations of offending behaviour

Answer 42

• LIMITATION: Gender bias: Idea that girls develop a weaker superego than boys. Having not experienced castration anxiety, girls are under less pressure to identify with their mothers, so their superego and, consequently, sense of morality is less developed. The most recent statistics suggest that there is a higher male:female ratio of people in criminal, which contradicts Freud’s theories. Hoffman (1975) found hardly any gender differences, and when there was, girls tended to be more moral than boys.
• LIMITATION: Contradictory evidence. There is little evidence that children raised without a same sex parent are less law abiding adults. This contradicts Blackburn’s weak superego argument. Furthermore, Blackburn’s theory that criminal behaviour reflects an unconscious desire to be punished seems implausible because most offenders go to great lengths to conceal their crimes and so want to avoid punishment at all costs.
• STRENGTH: Bowlby’s 44 thieves study conducted interviews with juvenile thieves and compared this to a control group. The research supports Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation which therefore increases the reliability of Bowlby’s theory
• LIMITATION: Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation may not be the sole cause for offending behaviour. Lewis (1954) analysed data drawn from interviews with 500 young people and found that maternal deprivation was a poor predictor of future offending and the ability to form close relationships with adolescence. Correlation does not equate a causation link.

Question 43

What are the ways of dealing with offending behaviour

Answer 43

• Custodial sentencing
• Behaviour modification in custody
• Anger Management
• Restorative justice

Question 44

What are the aims of custodial sentencing

Answer 44

DETERRENCE:
- Individual deterrence: preventing the offender from committing the same crime in the future
- General deterrence: to deter the rest of the rest of the population from committing the same crime.

PROTECTION OF SOCIETY:
- The offender is taken out of society, thus preventing further reoffending. This should protect other people in society from becoming victims.

RETRIBUTION:
- Society is enacting revenge for the crime by punishing the offender.
- A crime committed by the offender should receive a punishment proportional to the severity of the offence.

REHABILITATION:
- Offenders should be given the opportunity to develop skills or treatment so that when they are released they do not reoffend.

Question 45

Explain whether custodial sentencing works and why

Answer 45

DOES IT WORK?
- Reoffending rate (recidivism) of adult offenders within a year of being released from custody: April 2013 to March 2014 was 45.8%. Adults who served sentences of less than 12 months reoffend at a rate of 59.6%, compared to 33.9% for those who served sentences of 12 months or more.
- This shows that it does not work as a deterrent.
- The lowest rate of recidivism in Europe is Norway. The prison system is more open, with much greater emphasis on rehabilitation and skill acquisition than in the UK.

WHY:
- Does not address the psychological problems that caused prisoners to commit the crime in the first place. E.g poor moral development and attribution biases or mental health issues.
- People are released into the same social environment that they came from, with social deprivation and unemployment. The stigma attached to having been imprisoned makes it difficult to reintegrate into society.
- differential association theory - released prisoners associate with the same people.
- Behaviourist viewpoint: prison cannot work, because it does not follow the principles of operant conditioning. For learning to take place, punishment must be probable (I.e must always follow the behaviour), promptly (must follow the behaviour very shortly) and very unpleasant. However, many offenders are not caught (or not every time they commit the crime), the punishment is not prompt (there is a long delay between committing the crime, being convicted, and going to prison). Prison is unpleasant for most prisoners but there are other consequences to the offence (e.g financial gain or other forms of gratification).

Question 46

What are the psychological effects of custodial sentencing

Answer 46

Question 47

Describe the problem of recidivism

Answer 47

Question 48

Describe the process of behaviour modification in custody

Answer 48

• A token economy is one in which positive behaviours are rewarded and negative behaviours are discouraged (i.e. a form of operant conditioning)
• Token economies are a feature of offender behaviour management
• The aim of a token economy is incentivise offenders to behave in ways which are socially acceptable (e.g. avoiding fights and confrontations both with staff and other prisoners; keeping their cell clean and tidy)
• Token economies in custodial settings aim to help offenders to manage their time in prison (without the need for external incentive such as tokens) and to prepare for life on the ‘outside’
  Tokens are in themselves value-less but they can be exchanged for desirable ‘treats’ or privileges e.g. food, more outdoor exercise time, an extra hour’s TV viewing etc.
• Tokens act as secondary reinforcers i.e. it is not the tokens themselves that provide the reward, it is what they can be exchanged for (e.g. the primary reinforcement of food, extra visits from family etc)

Question 49

Evaluate the idea of behaviour modification in custody

Answer 49

Question 50

Describe the process of anger management as a way of dealing with offending behaviour

Answer 50

• Anger management is a treatment programme used in prisons (and other therapeutic settings such as group or individual counselling) to enable offenders to control and manage their hostile/violent/antisocial responses and thereby reduce the likelihood of recidivism
• The aim of anger management is to change the way offenders respond to situations that are likely to trigger anger per individual
• the physiological effects of anger surface first and are then followed by the psychological effects e.g. a racing heart, increased blood pressure and shallow breathing may lead to feelings of fury, hostility and the desire to control the situation via the anger response
• CBT is particularly effective in tackling anger as it harnesses and re-trains thought patterns and behaviour as the client progresses through stages which help them to identify the emotional, cognitive and behavioural patterns that are destructive and likely to lead to (possibly violent) outbursts

Question 51

What are the stages of anger management

Answer 51

Question 52

Evaluate anger management as a way of dealing with offending behaviour

Answer 52

Question 53

Describe restorative justice as a way of dealing with offending behaviour

Answer 53

• Restorative justice (RJ) refers to the processes by which both offender and victim may find some sense of ‘closure’ and reconciliation beyond the restrictions of the prison regime
• RJ is rehabilitative in aim and intent rather than punitive as it allows the victim to speak about the impact of the crime on them personally which in turn should enlighten the offender as to the harm that their actions have caused
• RJ allows crime victims to take an active role in dealing with what happened to them i.e. they don’t have to feel victimised but instead they are encouraged to feel that they are controlling the narrative by facing the offender and engaging with them in a constructive way (which is much more empowering than simply feeling that a bad thing has happened to them)
• The offender in turn may feel that they are not just a ‘number’ in the criminal justice system: their sense of self and autonomy comes to the fore during RJ sessions and forces them to focus on how they have ended up in prison

KEY ELEMENTS:

• Relationship: the offender has damaged the relationship not only with the victim but with society so it is necessary for the offender to feel accountable for their actions so that the relationship can be healed
• Respect: all participants in the RJ process should show respect towards each other - even if this is difficult at times - and this is achieved via active listening and trying to understand the perspective of the other person
• Responsibility: the offender must take responsibility for their actions, even if the harm inflicted on the victim was unintentional
• Repair: the offender must do what they can to repair the damage they have done (either practically and/or emotionally) and the victim must banish thoughts of revenge and punishment and instead embrace positive moves forward (which could involve forgiveness)
• Reintegration: the offender becomes part of the community and is accepted by that community with the emphasis on positive, active outcomes
• RJ can be conducted face-to-face or via letters or other remote means
• The offender may attempt to make amends via replacing money stolen from the victim, helping them to repair what they broke during a burglary or other less tangible reparations e.g. helping out on a community project

Question 54

Evaluate restorative justice as a way of dealing with offending behaviour

Answer 54