Forensics L3-8 Flashcards
What is the historical approach to explaining offending behaviour?
- Lombroso suggested that criminal
individuals were ill-suited to modern society - believed criminals were genetic throwbacks/primitive sub-species, who were biologically different from non-criminals
How did Lombroso view offenders, AF?
- offenders seen as lacking evolutionary development
- their savage and untamed nature meant that they would find it impossible to adjust to demands of civilised society and would inevitably turn to crime
- saw criminal behaviour as natural tendency, rooted in genealogy of those who engage in it
What does the atavistic form include in terms of cranial characteristics?
- a narrow, sloping brow
- a strong prominent jaw
- high cheekbones
- facial asymmetry
- other physical features included dark skin and extra, toes, nipples or fingers
What is the atavistic form?
- Lombroso argued that criminal sub-species could be identified by set of particular physiological characteristics that were linked to particular types of crime
- these were biologically determined atavistic (meaning reversion to something ancestral) characteristics
- mainly features of the face and head
- indicates that criminals are physically different from the rest of us
How were murderers described, AF?
- bloodshot eyes
- curly hair
- long ears
How were sexual deviants described, AF?
- glinting eyes
- swollen/fleshy lips
- projecting ears
How were fraudsters described, AF?
- lips were thin and ‘reedy’
What traits did Lombroso suggest beyond physical traits, AF?
- insensitivity to pain
- use of criminal slang
- tattoos
- unemployment
How did Lombroso test atavistic form?
- examined the facial and cranial features of Italian convicts
- both living and dead
- proposed that the atavistic form was associated with a number of physical anomalies which were key indicators of criminality
- he examined the skulls of 383 (~400) dead criminals and 3839 (~4000) living ones
- concluded that 40% of criminal acts could be accounted for by the criminal subspecies
Atavistic form, +ve evaluation:
- had an important role in the shift away from theories
based on feeble-mindedness, wickedness and demonic possession - was the forerunner to more biological explanations, evolutionary and genetic
Atavistic form, -ve evaluation:
- attention drawn to the distinct racist undertones in Lombroso’s work
- many of the features he described as atavistic (e.g. dark skin and curly hair) are most likely to be found in people of African descent
- claim that atavistic characteristics were uncivilized, savage and primitive
supported the eugenic philosophy
= Goring (1913) set out to establish if there were any physical or mental abnormalities among the criminal classes
= after conducting a comparison of 3,000 criminals and 3,000 non-criminals he concluded that there was no evidence that offenders had particular facial and cranial characteristics
= he did suggest that criminals are more likely to have a below average intelligence - Lombroso did not compare his criminal sample to a non-criminal control group
- if he had done then the differences he reported may have disappeared
= even if criminals have atavistic characteristics this doesn’t necessarily mean that
these characteristics cause their criminal behaviour
= facial and cranial features
can be influenced by poverty and poor diet, which can also lead people to crime
What twin study supports the genetic explanation of crime?
- Lange (1930) investigated 13 monozygotic (identical) twins and 17 dizygotic (non-identical)
twins - at least one of the twins in each pair had served time in prison
- 10 of the 13 pairs of monozygotic twins had both spent time in prison
- whereas only 2 of the 17 pairs of dizygotic twins had both spent time in prison
What is the genetic explanation for crime?
- criminal behaviour could be polygenic; this means that no one single gene is responsible for offending
- many genes responsible for causing criminal behaviour
- known as, candidate genes
- genetic explanations for crime suggest that would-be offenders inherit a gene, or combination of genes, that predisposes them to commit crime
What gene study supports the genetic explanation of crime?
- Tilhonen et al. (2014) conducted genetic analysis of over 900 Finnish offenders
- revealed abnormalities on two genes that may be associated with violent crime
- first was the MAOA gene, which controls dopamine and serotonin in the brain and has been linked to aggressive behaviour
- second was the CDH13 gene, this gene has been linked to substance abuse and attention deficit disorder
- within Finnish sample individuals with this high-risk combo of genes were 13 times more likely to have a history of violent behaviour compared to a control group
What is suggested by the diathesis stress model, GE?
- holds that genetics influence criminal behaviour but this is at moderated by the effects of the environment
- tendency towards criminal behaviour may come through a combination of genetic predisposition and biological or psychological triggers
- such as being raised in a dysfunctional environment
What is the neural explanation of crime?
- suggests that there may be neural differences in the brains of criminals compared with non-criminals
- much of the evidence in this area has investigated individuals diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder (APD)
- APD is associated with reduced emotional responses and a lack of empathy
- a condition that characterises many convicted criminals
What brain imaging study supports the neural explanation of crime?
- several dozen brain-imaging studies demonstrating that individuals with anti-social personalities have reduced activity in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain
- is the brain area that regulates emotional behaviour
- Raine et al. found an 11% reduction in the volume of grey matter in the prefrontal
cortex of people with APD compared to a control group
What empathy study supports the neural explanation of crime?
- recent research has suggested that criminals with APD can experience empathy but that they do so more sporadically than the rest of us
- Keysers et al. found that only when criminals were asked to empathise (with a person on a film experiencing pain) did their empathy reaction (controlled by mirror neurons in the brain) activate
- suggests that APD individuals are not totally without empathy but may have a neural switch that needs to be turned on in order to experience it
- in a normal brain the empathy switch is permanently switched on
Genetic+neural explanations, -ve evaluation:
no +ve
- concordance rates in MZ twins are not high and leave plenty of room for non-genetic environmental factors
- concordance rates may be due to shared learning experiences rather than genetics
= brain scanning studies show pathology in brains of
criminal psychopaths
= but cannot conclude whether these abnormalities are genetic or signs of early abuse
- term ‘offending behaviour’ is too vague
- some specific forms of crime may be more biological than others e.g. physical aggression
= example of biological reductionism
= criminality is complex and explanations that reduce
offending behaviour to a gene or imbalanced neurotransmitter may be inappropriate and overly simplistic
= criminal behaviour does seem to run in families, but so does emotional instability, mental illness, social deprivation and
poverty
= twin studies never show 100% concordance rates in monozygotic twins
= so genetics cannot be the only explanation for criminal behaviour
- example of biological determinism
- presents us with a dilemma for our legal system
- if someone has criminal gene they cannot have personal and moral responsibility for their crime
- if this is the case it would be unethical to punish someone who does not have free will
What is Eysenck’s theory of the criminal personality, PE?
- according to Eysenck (1947) our personality traits are biological in origin
- come about through the type of nervous system we inherit from our parents
- therefore, all personality types have an innate biological basis
- offenders have distinctive inherited/genetic personality traits, they are high in neuroticism, extraversion and psychoticism
What do the traits suggested by Esyneck lead to, PE?
- high extraversion score, impulsive and seek sensation which draws them to the thrill of criminal behaviour
= high neuroticism score, tend towards offending because they are unstable and unpredictable
= Eysenck believed that people with a high neuroticism score had inherited a nervous systems that made them difficult to
condition, as a result they will not learn easily from their mistakes - high psychoticism, cold, lack empathy and are prone to aggression
Eysenck’s theory PE, -ve evaluation:
no +ve
- Farrington et al. reviewed several studies and reported that offenders tended to score higher on psychoticism
- but NOT on extraversion and neuroticism, when compared to non-offenders
= idea that all offending behaviour can be explained by a single personality type has been heavily criticised as being simplistic
= crime is too varied and
complex a behaviour to be due to one single personality type
= the type of individual who commits murder is likely to be very different to one who commits fraud
- out of step with modern personality theory
- Digman’s Five Factor Model of personality suggests that openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness are important personality dimensions, in
addition to extraversion and neuroticism
= Bartol and Holanchock looked into cultural differences
= studied Hispanic and African-American offenders in a max security prison in New York
= divided them into six groups based on their criminal history and the nature of their offences
= all 6 groups were found to be LESS extravert than non-criminal control groups
= means Eysenck’s theory could be culturally biased
- based on the idea that it is possible to measure personality through psychological tests
- critics have argued that personality may not be reducible to a score in this way
- many psychologists believe there is no such thing as stable personality
- on a daily basis people’s personality changes depending who they are with and the situation they are in
What are the cognitive explanations to psychology?
- moral reasoning
- cognitive distortions
What is moral reasoning, CE?
- Kohlberg proposed that the quality of people’s judgments of right and wrong can be summarised by a stage theory of moral development
- offenders more likely to have their moral reasoning classified at the pre-conventional level
- means that a person is punishment orientated, reasoning based on whether or not the act will lead to punishment
- and reward orientated, reasoning based on what can be gained
- is immature reasoning which typically lasts from ages 3-7
- teens and adults who still reason in this way may commit crime if they can get away with it
and/or gain rewards - e.g. money, respect etc.
What are the levels of moral reasoning, CE?
- pre-conventional
- shows concern for self interest
- and external rewards and punishments - conventional
- one does what is expected of them by others - post-conventional
- one develops more autonomous decision making
- based on principles of right and justice
Moral reasoning CE, +ve evaluation:
- Palmer and Hollin compared moral reasoning
- between 210 female non-offenders, 122 male non-offenders and 126 convicted offenders
- using 11 moral dilemmas, such as not taking things that belong to others
- offenders showed less mature moral reasoning than the non-offenders
Moral reasoning CE, -ve evaluation:
- level of moral reasoning may depend on the type of offence
- Thornton and Reid found individuals who committed crimes for financial gain, such
as robbery, were more likely to show pre-conventional reasoning - than those convicted of impulsive crimes like assault, where no reasoning was evident
What are cognitive distortions, CE?
- the way an offender’s biased/dysfunctional thinking about their offence serves to help them legitimise their behaviour
- so they maintain a positive self-image
- includes hostile attribution bias and minimalisation
What is the hostile attribution bias, CD CE?
- when offender’s misinterpret social cues
- justify their actions to themselves by attributing the cause of their offence to their victim
- an unprovoked act is justified on the grounds that the victim did something to initiate the violence
- offenders tend to judge ambiguous situations, or the actions of others, as aggressive and/or threatening when in
reality they are not - may misread non-aggressive cues as aggressive and this may trigger a disproportionate, often violent, response
What is minimalisation, CD CE?
- when offenders justify their offence to themselves by playing down the significance of their actions
- may suggest that injuries inflicted in a vicious assault were mild
- this bias acts to reduce an offender’s feeling of guilt.
- offenders often use euphemisms for their offences
- e.g. hit someone and say it was a tap?
- sex offenders are in particular prone to minimalisation
Cognitive distortions CE, +ve evaluation?
- understanding the nature of cognitive distortions has proven beneficial in the treatment of criminal behaviour
- the dominant approach in the rehabilitation of sex offenders is CBT
- this encourages offenders to ‘face up’ to what they have done and establish a less distorted view of their actions
- reduced incidence of cognitive distortions in therapy is highly correlated with a reduced risk of offending
Cognitive distortions CE, -ve evaluation?
- hostile attribution bias can explain reactive aggressive behaviour better than pre-medicated and planned aggression
= minimalisation can describe how an offender rationalises or interprets their actions after the event
= but does not necessarily explain the initial cause of the offending - it explains thinking but it cannot account for the source of these thoughts
- are people born with cognitive distortions (nature) or are they the result of trauma (nurture)
= cannot be observed or measured
= psychologists have to rely on self-report or their own inferences to determine what someone is thinking
= means the cognitive explanation of criminal behaviour is not scientific
What is the differential association theory?
- Sutherland proposes that offending is
learnt through socialisation - pro-criminal attitudes/behaviour occur through association and relationships with other people like family and friends
- learn our norms and values from others, even deviant ones
- offending more likely to occur where the social group values deviant behaviour
- offending behaviours/techniques are passed on from one generation to another or between peers
Why is it referred to as differential, DAT?
- everyone’s associations are different
- expectations/attitudes of those around us act to reinforce our behaviours through acceptance/approval
- reinforcement also affects offending behaviour
- if rewards for offending are
greater than the rewards for not offending
Differential association theory, +ve evaluation:
- able to account for crime within all sectors of society
- while Sutherland (1939) recognised that some types of crime, such as burglary, may
be clustered within inner-city, working class communities - it is also the case that some crimes are most prevalent among affluent (richer) groups
- white-collar (sometimes referred to as corporate crime) is a feature of middle-class social
groups
= Sutherland was successful in moving the emphasis away from early biological explanations of crime
= and those explanations which saw offending as being the
product of individual weakness or immorality
= DAT draws attention to the role of dysfunctional social circumstances and environments in criminality - offers a more desirable and realistic solution to offending behaviour than the biological solution (eugenics) or the morality solution (punishment)
Differential association theory, -ve evaluation:
- difficult to test scientifically
- most evidence to support it is correlational so does not demonstrate cause and effect
- how can the pro-crime attitudes a person has been exposed to be measured?
- theory is built on the assumption that offending behaviour will occur when pro-criminal values outnumber anti-criminal ones
- but without being able to measure these values, it is difficult to know at what point the urge to offend will trigger a criminal career
= not everyone who is exposed to criminal influences goes on to commit crime
= is a danger that this theory could stereotype individuals who come from impoverished, crime-ridden backgrounds as ‘unavoidably criminal’
= theory ignores the fact that people might choose not to offend despite criminal
influences
= it ignore people’s free will
= e.g. offenders may seek out people with criminal values rather than being passively influenced by them
How can pro-criminal behaviours be learnt, DAT?
- imitation
- vicarious reinforcement
- direct reinforcement
- direct tuition from criminal pairs
What is the psychodynamic explanation of crime?
- inadequate superego
- suggests offenders have an Id which is insufficiently controlled/moderated
- because of problems with the development of the superego
How does the superego develop, PDE?
- superego is the last aspect of personality to form
- develops at end of phallic stage of psychosexual development at 3-6 years old
- major conflict of this stage is the Oedipus complex in which the male child unconsciously wishes to possess their mother and get rid of their father
- as result of this desire boys experience castration anxiety, they fear their father will remove their penis to punish them for their desire of their mother
- in attempt to resolve this anxiety the child identifies with their father and eventually internalises their father’s superego, creating their own
- girls go through a similar process, called the Electra complex
- but as they do not have castration anxiety, they do not internalise their mother’s superego to the same extent
- so their own superego is less well developed than a male
superego
What are the types of inadequate superego, PDE?
- weak superego, weak due to failure to identify fully with same-sex parent
- deviant superego, deviant due to identification with a deviant same-sex parent
- over-harsh superego, excessively punitive (attitude towards goal of punishment) superego so individual is crippled with guilt and anxiety, crimes committed to fulfil with unconscious desire for punishment
Inadequate superego PDE, +ve evaluation:
- combines innate drives such as those in the id (nature) and the
effects of early experience (nurture)
Inadequate superego PDE, -ve evaluation:
- theory has a lack of falsifiability
- id and superego are unconscious and therefore cannot be empirically tested
= viewing the cause of offending as within the person neglects the complexity of the social conditions of offending
= such as deprivation, lack of education, poverty etc - according to Freud male identification with the same-sex parent is stronger sp males should be more moral than females
- is not supported by crime statistics as evidence is that more males offend than females
= no evidence that children raised without a same-sex parent offend more than children who do - adheres to psychic determinism as it suggests that offenders
cannot be held responsible for their crimes - problems are rooted in childhood experience behaviour cannot change
= if children raised by deviant parents go on to commit crime themselves this could be due to genetics or learning rather than a deviant superego - idea that some criminals have an unconscious desire for punishment is debatable
- most offenders go to great lengths to conceal their crime and so avoid punishment
