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Psychology A-level > Forensics > Flashcards

Forensics Flashcards

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1
Q

How is crime time relative?

A

Attitudes, social norms and moral values change over time. Homosexuality - illegal before 1967 in the UK.

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2
Q

How is crime culturally relative?

A

Attitudes differ across cultures; what’s deemed legal and illegal will vary. In Saudi Arabia - marriage has no minimum legal age. In the UK, one must be 16 or older with PC.

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3
Q

How is crime age relative?

A

A crime is an act committed with intention despite full awareness of the law. Children below 10 are considered to not be fully responsible for their actions - they cannot be charged with a crime.

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4
Q

What are the three issues with defining crime?

A

Crime is time, age and culturally relative.

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5
Q

What are the three ways of measuring crime?

A

Official statistics, victim and offender surveys.

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6
Q

Give some facts about official statistics as a way of measuring crime.

A
  • Created by official bodies (police, cs)

- Used in E and W since 1805 - time trends

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7
Q

What are problems with official statistics?

A
  • Not accurate; only crimes that have been reported to and recorded by police are included. The dark figure of crime is neglected.
  • Misleading; Farrington and Dowds compared crime stats in Nottingham and 2 neighbouring counties; crime rates were higher in Nottingham only because the police recorded all crimes.
  • Potential misuse by groups for disinformation through ‘cherry picking’.
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8
Q

Give some facts about offender surveys as a way of measuring crime.

A
  • Ask people to report their own crimes.
  • Measure victimless crimes and allow people who’d normally not be caught to record their crimes.
  • OCJS is an example.
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9
Q

What are problems with offender surveys?

A
  • People may lie or exaggerate their behaviour.
  • Reports may be misleading or falsely interpreted.
  • Likely biased, only certain people that’ve committed certain crimes will confess their acts.
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10
Q

Give some facts about victim surveys as a way of measuring crime.

A
  • Collected from victims.
  • CS E and W is an example.
  • Useful because they include crimes that haven’t been written up by police.
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11
Q

What are the problems with victim surveys?

A
  • Rely on people’s memories which are likely to be faulty or biased. ‘Telescoping’ is an example of faulty memory; people remember events as being more recent or remote than they actually were.
  • Don’t consider more impersonal crimes such as white-collar crimes e.g embezzlement.
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12
Q

Outline the key features of the top-down approach.

A
  • Based on interviews of 36 convicted SKs and SMs.
  • Organised: sc, intellig, lived together, planned attacks.
  • Disorganised: sic, unintellig, lived alone, didn’t plan.
  • Data is assimilated about the crime scene and victim, then the crime is classified and judgements are made about the likely charcs. of the offender.
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13
Q

Outline the key features of the bottom-up approach.

A
  • Developed by Canter, uses investigative psych. more.
  • Geographical profiling sees the crime scene as an info source, and every case is treated as unique.
  • Likely charcs. of the offender are then inferred.
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14
Q

What are the four stages of building an FBI-style profile?

A
  1. Assimilating data
  2. Identify the type of crime committed
  3. Reconstructing the crime
  4. Creating a profile
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15
Q

What are the 5 charcs. that should be included in a profile according to Canter?

A
  1. Personal charcs.
  2. Criminal history
  3. Residential location - ‘circle theory’.
  4. Domestic and social charcs.
  5. Occupational and educational history
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16
Q

What are some problems with offender profiling?

A
  • Can only be used for a select range of of offences that reveal more than usual info about the offender such as rape, murder and crimes involving macabre practices.
  • Limited effectiveness: Holmes reported that in 192 cases in which profiling was used, 88 arrests were made, but profiling was instrumental in 17% of these arrests.
  • Copson found only 14% of senior police officers had found profiling crucial in solving a case.
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17
Q

What was an infamous misuse of offender profiling?

A

The Rachel Nickell case. She was murdered in 1992. Paul Britton broadcast his suggested profile on TV and several callers identified Colin Stagg. Stagg was innocent, Robert Napper admitted the crime in 2008.

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18
Q

What was a successful use of offender profiling?

A

John Duffy had committed 24 sexual assaults and three murders. Canter developed a profile that almost completely matched Duffy’s characteristics. For example, he guessed correctly that Duffy had an interest in martial arts - Duffy was a club member.

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19
Q

What are the two biological explanations of offending behaviour?

A
  • Lombroso’s atavistic form

- Genetic and neural factors

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20
Q

Outline the key features of the Atavistic form theory.

A
  • Lombroso studied the physical characteristics of criminals and concluded that criminals were more likely to have primitive features like a heavy brow and strong jaw
  • He suggested that criminal behaviour came from primitive instincts that had survived the evolutionary process; criminals were genetic throwbacks that could be identified by their physical features
21
Q

What are two key weaknesses of Lombroso’s theory of the atavistic form?

A
  • No control group was used to see whether the physical characteristics described were unique to the criminal population
  • Much of his sample may have had psychological disorders or chromosomal abnormalities that could’ve been a factor in their criminal behaviour
22
Q

What does the genetic explanation of offending behaviour revolve around?

A
  • Mednick et al’s concordance analysis supported a genetic link for criminality
  • Research into candidate genes found that certain genetic mutations could increase an individual’s susceptibility to engaging in offending behaviour. Brunner et al found an association between an MAOA gene mutation and impulsive aggression.
  • However, conc. rates are not 100%, so the env. must play a major role too.
23
Q

Describe a study investigating neural explanations for criminality.

A
  • Raine et al
  • Functional processes of 41 murderers and 41 control participants were examined using PET scans
  • The murderers showed signs of dysfunctional processes e.g reduced glucose metabolism in the PFC
24
Q

Describe Keysers et al’s study into mirror neurons.

A
  • Found that criminals with APD can experience empathy, but only if asked to
  • When asked to, they exhibited the empathy reaction and their mirror neurons were activated; implying they may have a ‘neural switch’ that they can turn on and off
25
Q

What three dimensions did Eysenck propose personality could be measured along?

A

Introversion/extroversion
Neuroticism/stability
Psychoticism

26
Q

What basis did Eysenck suggest personality had?

A

Biological

For example, he suggested extroverted people have an under- active NS; causing them to constantly seek excitement.

27
Q

What did Eysenck suggest the criminal personality type was?

A

High scores in terms of extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism.

28
Q

How did Eysenck suggest personality was linked to criminal behaviour?

A

Via socialisation processes: high E and N persons had N Systems that made it hard for conditioning to occur. Thus they haven’t learned how to respond to antisocial impulses with anxiety instead of action.

29
Q

What are cognitive distortions?

A

Cognitive distortions are irrational thought patterns that distort an individuals perception of reality.

30
Q

What are the 4 types of cognitive distortions outlined by Gibbs et al?

A
  1. Being self-centred
  2. Minimisation - minimising the seriousness of their offending behaviour
  3. Blaming problems on others
  4. Hostile attribution bias - perceiving others as having hostile intentions towards oneself
31
Q

How can Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning be applied to criminality?

A

Criminals may have a lower level of moral reasoning, causing them to not feel like they’re doing something ‘wrong’.

32
Q

What did Kohlberg’s sample consist of and how did he identify levels of moral reasoning?

A
  • 72 boys aged 10, 13 and 16

- Used ten different dilemmas e.g Heinz’s dilemma

33
Q

What were the different levels of moral reasoning?

A
  1. Pre-conventional - right COA is the one in your own best interest
  2. Conventional - right COA is the one that boosts other’s image of you
  3. Post-conventional - right COA is the one that promotes the greatest good for the greatest number of people
34
Q

What were the findings of Allen et al?

A

Criminals tended to have a lower level of moral reasoning than non-criminals. They also don’t progress through the stages of the MRLs as easily.

35
Q

What did Freud suggest about the causes of offending behaviour?

A

That it was linked to early childhood experiences, specifically abnormal development of the constituents of the tripartite personality.

36
Q

What did Blackburn suggest about the different type of superegos?

A

Weak superego - fewer inhibitions towards conducting antisocial behaviour.
Deviant superego - will be less responsive to crime.
Strong superego - over-exposure to the guilt emotion could lead to someone deliberately seeking judicial punishment by committing offences.

37
Q

How are defence mechanisms related to offending behaviour?

A

Repression and denial is used to deny the urges of our unconscious. However a triggering stimulus could cause a release of these feelings in the form of antisocial, offending behaviour.

38
Q

Who developed the differential association theory?

A

Sutherland 1939

39
Q

What are the key assumptions of the DAT?

A
  • Criminal behav. is learnt from interactions with deviant social groups
  • Techniques, motives and attitudes towards crime are learnt
  • Frequency, duration, intensity and priority of these interactions will affect the likelihood of an individual becoming criminal
40
Q

What are the aims of imprisonment? (RRIDD)

A 
Retribution - 'pay' for their crimes
Rehabilitation 
Incapacitation - protecting the public
Denunciation  - making an 'example'
Deterrence - both specific and general
41
Q

What are the four effects of imprisonment on criminals?

A
  • Mental health problems
  • Institutionalization (dependency)
  • Reinforces criminal behav. (teaching another)
  • Labeling (dealing with social stigma, employment difficulties)
42
Q

In 2012, … of former inmates reoffended.

A

1/3

43
Q

What is one form of behaviour modification?

A

Integrating a token economy system

44
Q

How does a token economy system work?

A
  • Based on OC
  • Inmates ‘rewarded’ with tokens for good behaviour, exchanged for desirable items
  • Punished for poor behaviour, tokens withheld
45
Q

What did Milan and McKee find in relation to the effectiveness of a token economy?

A

Found that inmates’ observable, monitored behaviour was best when a full token economy had been implemented.

46
Q

What did Kirigin et al find in relation the effectiveness of a token economy?

A

Found that although rates of criminality and unfavourable behaviour amongst delinquent youths were reduced with a token economy, rates were identical to the control once the programme stopped.

47
Q

Outline Ireland (2000)

A
  • Aggression levels of 50 inmates in a young offenders institution were measured before and after an AM programme
  • 92% of ppts saw an improvement
48
Q

What are the features of restorative justice?

A
  • Can be used for a variety of offences
  • Victim must volunteer, offender must admit responsibility
  • Process may involve the victim and offender meeting face to face or communicating otherwise
  • Can involve offenders trying to undo the caused damage e.g removing graffiti
49
Q

What did the 2007 Smith Report find about RJ?

A
  • Reduced PTSD in victims, made them less prone to vengeful emotions
  • Criminals and victims satisfied with RJ over the TJS
  • Decreased costs

Psychology A-level (6 decks)

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