Forensics A03 Flashcards
top down approach/ typological
useful
- Ev - Copson Q’ed 184 US police officers, 82% said operationally useful, 90% would use again
- Ex - typological profiling effective, majority of police say useful in apprehending a suspect, valid. Allows investigators to investigate from a different perspective and can help narrow down suspects. Confirms what already believe to be true.
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L - But subjective, based on opinions - Alison et al - police officers given a profile along with one of two versions of the offenders actual characteristics (one real).
Over 50% of officers rated the profile they were given as accurate even though half were given a fake version. so not useful in giving an accurate profile.
Furthermore, this can mislead the police into looking into eliminating potential suspects and allowing dangerous criminals to roam free/ falsely convicted, MOJ.
criticism - generalisability
- Ev - original data which organised/disorganised classification is based on may be flawed. Data came from interviews with 36 of most dangerous and sexually motivated murders including Ted Bundy and Charles Mason.
- Ex - For one, these criminals are highly manipulative so not best source of reliable info, and secondly they committed unique and rare crimes that are maybe quite different to more ‘typical crimes’. e.g. Fraud = most common crime, non violent.
- L - However, the apprehension stage of typological profiling allows for improvements to be constantly made, meaning in the future the reliability of this profiling technique could be increased and could be more useful.
but reductionist
- Ev - has been found the dichotomy between organised and disorganised is false.
- Ex - David Canter - analysed 39 aspects of serial killings in murders committed by 100 US serial killers, analysis revealed no clear division between organised and disorganised. Found they were all organised type crimes and little evidence of disorganised types.
- Additionally, offenders may start off disorganised and become more organised so by looking at 2 distinct categories, they may fail to link two crimes by the same criminal together.
bottom up/ investigative
strength - usefulness
- Ev - 75% of 48 Uk police forces using investigative psychology claimed profilers advice was useful
- Ex - therefore, useful in helping aid police investigations and catching criminals, preventing further victims.
- L - However, only 3% of these said the advice actually helped identify the offender. Meaning it doesn’t help catch offenders 97% of the time. This shows that it’s not useful in catching criminals, but maybe helps police look from diff perspective/ confirm what’s already true.
**_lead to wrongful convictions
- Ev - One profile stuck too closely to in murder of Rachel Nickel. Forensic psychologist Paul Britton helped the police create a profile which led to id of Colin Stagg who spent 13 months in custody before they realised he wasn’t the killer.
- Ex - Leads to wrongful convictions, future victims, as only focus on profile, can ignore the real perpetrator. Harm to wrongful convicted.
- L - But this has led to improvements in behavioural analysis, profilers advise police only.
bottom up/ geographical
strength- based on objective data of crime locations
- Ev - helped to catch a job Duffy (Railway Rapist)
- Ex - works better as not subjective interpretation like top down.
- L - however, it cant distinguish between multiple offenders in the same area. And if offender is aware of circle theory it can be used against the police to confuse them.
lack of usefulness of circle theory
- Ev - Similar to pins on a map. Police already do this. Not adding anything extra to police knowledge.
- Ex - Additionally if a persons home base isn’t actually in the centre of the circle, police may look in the wrong place. Representing ranges in terms of circles is over-simplistic.
- L - However, CGT has improved the accuracy and information on circle theory. However this is only as good as the human that did computer programme.
early biological explanations: Lombroso
strength: objectivity and scientificness
- Ev - measuring almost 400 criminal skulls almost 4000 live criminals, objective data, correlational.
- Ex - Valid and reliable, not due to self-reports (social desirability)
- L - Using live criminals, measuring insensitivity to pain and hairiness = subjective. Not all on objective skull measurements. only italian criminals, not generalisable.
Criticism: lack of control group of non-criminals to compare
- Ev - Goring had a control group and found no differences between criminals and non criminals in number of atavistic traits.
- Ex - Atavistic traits are in general population and not a cause of offending
- L - appearance of offenders could be env rather than genetics, e.g. stigmata (piercings and tattoos). Additionally, if individuals experience persistently poor interactions with others (due to how they look) they will develop lower self esteem, and increased frustration with other making them more likely to commit criminal beh.
Criticism: social sensitivity - racist
- Ev - describes Black African/ Caribbean ethnicity, e.g. curly hair, dark skin, large brow.
- Ex - increased prejudice to black community being criminal. Still evidence today. Could highlight racism in CJS - white upper class males convicting more young, black males, hence more skulls and live criminals crim that community in his sample (hence biased)
- L - However, theory developed during historical period of slavery (lack validity, more of a reflection of attitudes at the time (1870)
genetics
XYY
- Ev - evidence of a higher correlation in prison pop (1.5%) compared to a normal pop (0.1%)
- Ex - suggests males are more aggressive due to higher testosterone levels. This relates to the crime statistics that show a significant difference in violent crimes committed by men and women.
- L - But 98.5% don’t have XYY, doesn’t explain maj of offenders.
Twin studies
- Ev - Lange investigated 13 Mz, 17 Dz twins who had spent time in prison.
Mz = 10/13, Dz= 2/17 also in prison.
- Ex - Mz = 100% genetics shared, higher concordance rate than Dz (50%), therefore genetic.
- L - but could still be due to env. Mz reared more similarly than Dz as look identical. Also not 13/13
Adoption studies
- Ev - Mednick et al conducted study of 13,000 Danish adoptees. neither bio/ adoptive parents had crim record - 13.5% criminal record.
figure rose to 20% when bio parents had. 24.5% when both bio and adoptive had.
- Ex - so higher for biological than for none. so genetic
- L - but for both, higher, hence diathesis-stress model (childhood trauma and genetic predisposition) and when with non is still high, env.
Family Studies
- Ev - Farrington conducted a longitudinal study following 411
boys aged 4-48. 161 has convictions
- Ex - found several common characteristics: poverty, poor parenting, poor education, impulsiveness.
- L - however, there was a positive correlation between fathers and sons being criminal, so genetics but could be SLT.
neurochemistry
research support
- Ev - Meta-analysis – 29 pieces of research on anti-social adults and children. Low levels of serotonin in all offenders.
- Ex - Low serotonin levels lead to impulsivity hence why they are more anti-social e.g. varying offending behaviour. This implies offending is biological – e.g. mutation in MAOA-L producing low serotonin leads to impulsivity – leads to offending.
-
L - However, low levels of serotonin causing depression,
poverty, offending behaviour e.g. convictions – leads to lack of employment and depression or childhood trauma. Environmental, low levels due to environmental stressors, rather than serotonin being the cause.
Diathesis-Stress Model
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Ev - Both nature and nurture. Genetic predisposition to having low serotonin and high dopamine or noradrenaline.
Stressors (e.g. childhood trauma or poverty) to bring out the offending behaviour. -
Ex -If someone had a good upbringing, no violence at home, in
fact they are not likely to offend even if have lower serotonin and higher dopamine levels. -
L - However, env – stress in childhood changes the genetics (epigenetics) by switching off MAOA and switching on CDH-13, creating the change in neurotransmitter levels, leads to offend, creates more stress and poverty and continues to change the neurophysiology,
neurochemistry in the brain (e.g. plasticity). This would explain how delinquents continue to offend in adulthood.
neurophysiology
Research support
- Ev - Raine at al – 41 murderers who pleaded NGRI (not
guilty by reason of insanity). Control group of 41 non- murders (matched then on gender, schizophrenia).
Only 2 females. PET scan to study the brain areas.
Results – asymmetrical activity in the amygdala (lower in one hemisphere than the other), lack of activity in the
thalamus and other areas of the limbic system. Lack of activity in the PFC.
- Ex - This supports the role of limbic system & PFC in offending – fear recognition issues (amygdala). More impulsivity = PFC (consequential thinking).
- L - However, this only accounts for aggressive beh, can’t be generalised to all types of crime so must be other factors to consider when looking at expl of crim.
biology or environment?
- Ev - Research is only highlighting a correlation between brain abnormalities and criminalities. There may be other factors.
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Ex - Poor parenting, childhood trauma or poverty & stress that has changed neurophysiology. Childhood env = brain underdevelopment. Both nature and nurture that is responsible for creating offending
behaviour. -
L - Biology implications = eugenics, fixed, born evil… death penalty or lifetime imprisonment. Overcrowding issues, school of crime… even violent offenders.
Neurophysiology as an explanation is not helpful in helping to prevent and ‘cure’ crime.
Eysenck’s theory of criminal personality
Research support biological
- Ev - MZ 0.52 correlation for neuroticism and 0.51 for extraversion.
Dz 0.24 neuroticism, 0.12 extraversion.
- Ex - 100% Mz, 50% Dz. Correlation for Mz higher, suggests personality has a genetic component and people are born with the genetic predisposition to become offenders.
- L - However, it’s not a perfect 1.0 correlation, so can’t be purely genetic. Difference could be cuz MZ twins treated similarly in their env. Could mean criminality env caused rather than innate.
personality test lacks validity
- Ev - Self report EPQ. Pps responses may not reflect their real personality. Restricts to Yes/No. when ‘sometimes’ may be more appropriate.
- Ex - More social desirability than accurate measure. Assumes critical awareness of personality traits.
- L - but there is a low scale to account for any social desirability. Correlational, no cause and effect, cannot say personality trait causes criminality.
personality is not consistent across situations
- Ev - people may be consistent in similar situations but not across situations. e.g. more relaxed at home but neurotic at work. This situational theory was supported by research where family, friends and strangers were asked to rate 63 students in a variety of situations. They found almost no correlation between people’s ratings of the traits.
- Ex - Personality is not innate Is personality even a concept? so the theory that a criminal personality causes offending is flawed as there is no such thing as ‘one’ personality.
- L -Useful RLA, can identify possible criminals before offending and provide pro-social treatment, e.g. change upbringing, using conditioning experience with those in high E and N.
cognitive distortions
Research to support for HAB causing offending
- Ev -55 violent offenders, matched control to normal pps– happy, angry & fearful facial expressions – offenders saw all facial expressions as aggression.
- Ex - Offenders see non-existent threat – Offenders have cognitive bias that causes them to interpret innocent social situations as hostile and threatening due to thinking errors.
- L - HAB could be biological (noradrenaline & overactive flight & fight; EPQ)
Research support for minimalisation causing offending
- Ev - Sex offenders downplayed behaviour, e.g. suggesting the victims beh contributed in some way to crime/ 1/3 deny a crime has been committed. 1/4 believed victim benefitted in some way from abuse.
- Ex - This shows self-deception, where they don’t accept full reality, attempt to rationalise acts to help remove any guilt. Minimalisation allows sex offending to occur as justifies reason to offend.
- L - Is it the cause of offending or just excuse to justify reason for offending? May be reason for reoffending but not initial offence.
Moral reasoning
Strength: support for pre-conventional moral reasoning causing offending
- Ev - 128 male juvenile offenders, 38% did not consider the consequences of their actions & 38% confident would not get caught
-
Ex - Moral reasoning surrounded punishment, getting caught or the consequences to
themselves, lack of perspective taking (criminals stuck in pre-conventional stage of moral reasoning) -
L - However, low %, 62% possibly in a higher stage of moral reasoning. Not sole reason for
offending. Correlational… cause & effect.
Criticism: Gender bias
- Ev - Kohlbergs research only based on males, androcentric bias. surrounds knowledge of law & order; housewives lacked knowledge of law and politics, knew about compassion and care (hence max Stage 3).
- Ex - Gilligan changed working to be about caring for family and community (then reached stage 5).
-
L - However, temporal validity; women have greater knowledge now… Kohlberg now
applies. Also if moral reasoning is applies after, it cannot be an explanation for initial offending, but could help with the understanding of reoffending.
__
- Ev -
- Ex -
- L -
differential association theory
Strength: changed views on offenders, e.g. societal not individual ‘evil’
- Ev - Societal factors to blame, e.g. family upbringing, peers etc instead of ind factors (bio, personality traits).
- Ex - Therefore, can explain all crimes, not just violent (as seen with previous theories) such as white collar crime (fraud, forgery, bribery)
- L - Ignores biological components, e.g. personality traits leasds to associate with similar people (pro-crime). e.g. XYY, MAOA gene.
Strength: research support for DAT
- Ev - 40% sons criminal by 18 when father was; 13% criminal when father was not.
- Ex - Role models in env (DAT) reason for offending. Father role model
- L - Could support biological/genetic theories as father share 50% genes with sons.
Criticism: only partial explanation for offending
- Ev - Only explains smaller crimes, than serious violent crimes,
e.g. murder or rape.
- Ex - Unlikely to associate with murderers or rapists (particularly when young) as rare crimes. So cannot explain sexual murderers.
- L -Smaller crimes are majority (Eng + Wales 2014 - 500 homocides, 400,000 burglaries) hence better explanation (prevents the most victims); Social media does allow associations with other ‘rare’ criminals. Also, explains how prison can increase reoffending rates (school of crime).
psychodynamic theory of offending - maternal deprivation
Strength: research support
- Ev - 44 thieves study = MD causes psychopathy & serious violent offending.
-
Ex - Due to lack of empathy; mothers responsible for developing
emotional intelligence & empathy. Implications for working mothers,
role of father, putting mothers in prison and removing children of
abuse or neglect into foster
adoption system. -
L - Correlational – no cause and effect. Retrospective = looked at
psychopaths to see if MD, not if MD caused psychopathy. Could be many with MD who are not psychopaths.
Criticism: Correlational: many other variables to explain relationship between MD and psychopathy
- Ev - Education, poverty, family criminality all responsible for Psychopathy & criminality (but may have had MD)
- Ex - Implication is blaming mothers for criminality (e.g. means that mothers cannot have equal work rights as males)
- L - However, Sweden provides equal rights for parental leave to either fathers or mothers and no impact on crime. Hence Bowbly is affected by cultural attitudes towards women’s roles in society (sexism).
psychodynamic theory of offending - Freud, superego
Strength: real life application
- Ev - Psychoanalysis used in prison to uncover repression and denial; work through excessive guilt.
- Ex - Proves that superego is responsible for offending & impact of guilt and deviant morals from parents to cause offending.
- L - but no evidence that same sex or single parents households have higher % of criminality in children.
Criticism: No evidence of superego causing offending
- Ev - Lack of falsifiability as cannot see unconscious and superego. Offenders unaware of their ID and superego.
- Ex - Cannot prove or disprove that superego and ID is responsible. More like a religion (believe it or don’t).
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L - However, theory is robust and used extensively to explain all human behaviour, including offending. Socially sensitive towards women (inferior morals to men as less fear (castration worse than rejection).
Hence supports the need for women to be controlled by men. Not supported by prison statistics on female v male offender
custodial sentencing (dealing with offending beh)
Deterrence: Larger CS prevent offending
behaviour
- Ev - 15% of offenders are first time offenders; 58.9% of adults
reoffended in less than 12 months &
19.8/100,000 (in 2021) people
murdered in Texas (with the death
penalty).
-
Ex - If deterrence Texas = 0%
murders. The 1st time reoffending
rate would be higher, and less
adults would reoffend.
Offenders = impulsive, no
consideration of long-term
consequences. Deterrence does
not work. - L - However, recidivism is lower for juveniles (34.3%). Works more on younger people? Recidivism lower when includes rehab…
_ Retribution: Better aim is to achieve societal/victim justice or revenge._
- Ev -Society considers justice to equate to longer sentences, harsh
custodial conditions.
-
Ex -Judgements are based off an ‘eye for an eye’ principle. This is a ‘vote winner’ for politicians (in
UK/USA). -
L - Not reducing but increasing reoffending due to psychological effects of CS, e.g., homelessness, education, drugs & low self-esteem are made worse.
Victims don’t feel retribution has
been achieved. Victims have little
voice in sentencing.
Incapacitation: CS should aim to protect the public
- Ev - Crimes are prevented whilst the offender is in prison, hence protecting the public. This is a
cost of £44,500 per person each
year.
-
Ex - Impossible aim – leads to overcrowding, Increases violence (riots) and suicide risk.
Crimes still happen within prison,
e.g., drugs (school of crime) - L - Effective if room & government can afford the increased costs. At some point the prison population would need to be reduced = death penalty? Community sentences? Rehabilitation?
Rehabilitation: Rehabilitation can reduce recidivism & solve incapacitations overcrowding issues
-E - 47.2% recidivism rate between 1997-2005 on cognitive skills training programmes.
-Ex - Aiming to deal with offending issues, e.g. drugs, poverty,
homelessness, low educational
attainment & cognitive deficits (e.g.
impulsivity, lack of perspective
taking) works. Prevents future
offending (unlike other aims).
-L - However, rehab more effective for violent or sexual offenders, than smaller offences.
Should we aim to achieve all 4?
Norway – more rehab &
incapacitation than retribution &
deterrence. Community and victim
involvement in sentencing. Risk of
offender and offender/victims needs at the center of decision making.
behaviour modification (dealing with offending behaviour)
Strength – research support that token economy systems (TES) increase pro-social behaviour
- Ev - 125 Boys (12-15 yrs) in cottages given TES to those without TES. Use tokens for sweets, toys, cigarettes or save for baseball games or visits home. Pro-social behaviour increased from an average of 62% pre TES to 89% post TES (increase of 27%).
-
Ex - Therefore, behaviour modification is successful in reducing anti-social behaviour =
offending behaviour. This is simple and easy to implement. - L - However, it needs to be consistently implemented otherwise it does not work effectively. The behaviours needed to earn tokens needs to be operationalised.
Criticism – it is a short-term method of dealing with offending behaviour
- Ev - Studies have found that the effects of the TES do not persist once out of the TES.
-
Ex - Therefore, it is likely to have high recidivism rates. TES teaches to extrinsically comply
with an institutions rules for tokens rather than internalise reasons for changing their behaviour. Therefore, there is little rehabilitative value.
-L - However, implications - TES being useful within education, e.g., school dealing with Autism. Therefore, prevents offending by encouraging pro-social behaviour. However, socially sensitive – labelling autism as like offending.
Strength – research support to show it does work long term
- Ev - A study comparing TES to no TES with juvenile delinquents found they were less likely to offend after 1 year.
- Ex - Suggests TES can reduce offending behaviour outside of the TES.
- L - However, seems less effective with adult offenders (50% of 92 men in a Canadian max secure hospital reoffended). Hence it is not better than chance. Furthermore, there are ethical issues, as TES can be seen to remove offenders’ basic human rights, e.g., right to socialisation, right to food. Could lead to psychological effects within prison.
anger management (dealing with offending behaviour)
CBT anger management programmes effective at reducing recidivism
- Ev - Meta-analysis of 6 studies – 75% improvement – study found 20/58 had CBT with anger control had greatest improvement.
- Ex - AM are effective & do reduce recidivism, particularly the skills acquisition element.
- L - However, met-analysis may not be accurate, as different length programmes or levels of expertise (psychologist or prison officer) in delivering the AM. Furthermore, based of self report from prison staff (bias).
Methodological issues with attrition rate
- Ev - Voluntary AM has a high drop out rate. Involves high commitment to reflect and change thinking and attitudes to offending behaviour.
- Ex - Furthermore, this programmes often are short term and do not show a long- term effect passed on 1 year recidivism_**
-
L - However, drama-based AM has been proven more successful & after 1-year, Cognitive Skills Booster Sessions (CBS)
are offered to eliminate the lack of long- term effectiveness.
Cannot say that anger causes violent offending, as there is little correlation between anger and aggression
- Ev - Study found in 300 males there was no difference between violent offenders/non-violent offenders in their levels of anger.
- Ex - Therefore, AM is not effective, it assumes anger leads to violence however not the case. E.g., instrumental aggression from psychopaths (lack of affect), use violence to gain, i.e., armed robbery = not anger
-
L -However, AM could be effective by targeting violent offenders with anger issues, rather than all violent offenders.
Ensure drama-based activities in the
skills acquisition phase & offer booster after a year. Enhances effectiveness of AM.
restorative justice (dealing with offending behaviour)
Support effectiveness of RJ
- Ev - 85% satisfaction from victim face- to-face meetings, 92.5% victim satisfaction when a victim of violent crime. Victims stated more satisfaction when through mainstream court.
-
Ex - This is strength because the victims feel they have retribution for the harm done by the offender, compared to the custodial
sentencing (as limited involvement
in CJS). - L - However, based of self-report, victims may be socially desirable – more likely to say it is good after being through the long process.
Support in RJ reducing recidivism
- Ev - 20 studies of face-to-face meetings showed a 14% reduction in reoffending.
- Ex - This suggests that rather than just basing effectiveness of victim’s self report satisfaction, that RJ reduces reoffending, prevent future victims to have to go through the CJS and Rj process. Thereby more important in effectiveness.
-
L - However, only 14%, 86% are still reoffending. Therefore, RJ is not on its own effective at reducing
reoffending. Maybe needs to be a
multi pronged approach, e.g., CS
and RJ together, using AM programmes and drug rehabilitation
as well as RJ.
Criticism as RJ not effective
with all offenders
- Ev - Zehr claimed RJ can be done without offender present as some types of crimes may not be suitable. Such as letters, emails etc.
- Ex - This tends to be the case for crimes with an unclear specific victim, or psychopathic offenders who lack of empathy (may enjoy the suffering to the victim).
-
L - However, RJ cannot be used with all victims or offenders. E.g., the victim or offender may decline to take part. It would not work with offenders or victims with learning disabilities (e.g., low IQ), or
offenders who claim they are not
guilty of the offence.
Furthermore, RJ could lead to
emotional harm for victim and high
risk of self-harm/suicide to the
offende
