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AS Criminology > Glossary > Flashcards

Glossary Flashcards

1
Q

Define

Adversarial system

A

A trial procedure in which prosecution and defence teams compete to establish the truth of their version of events.

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2
Q

Define

Age regression

A

A hypnotic technique in which the witness is ‘taken back’ to the age at which they witnessed a crime in order to ‘relive it’.

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3
Q

Define

Amygdala

A

A brain structure, part of the limbic system, which is involved in empathic responses to others. The functioning of the amygdala is thought to be impaired in psychopaths.

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4
Q

Define

Anger management

A

An attempt to reduce aggressive behaviour by helping violent offenders to deal with inappropriate feelings of anger.

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5
Q

Define

Attributions

A

The reasons assigned by an individual to explain why something has occurred. Attributions may have little to do with the real reason why something happened.

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6
Q

Define

Attribution theory

A

A branch of psychology that aims to explain how people arrive at attributions.

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7
Q

Define

Behavioural evidence

A

Evidence from the disposition of clues at the crime scene that indicates how the crime was committed.

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8
Q

Define

British crime survey (BCS)

A

A victimisation survey carried out periodically by the home office in an attempt to discover the true incidence of crime in the uk.

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9
Q

Define

Cognitive-behavioural therapy

A

A form of psychological therapy that aims to alter maladaptive thinking strategies through behavioural techniques.

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10
Q

Define

Cognitive interview

A

An interview procedure based on the principles of cue-dependent forgetting. It is claimed to enhance recall and produce fewer errors than the standard interview procedure.

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11
Q

Define

Commuter

A

An offender who travels some distance to offend.

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12
Q

Define

Conspecifics

A

Members of the same species

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13
Q

Define

Copycat crime

A

A crime which is purportedly carried out in the style of another crime, real or fictional.

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14
Q

Define

Crime rate

A

The incidence of crime for a given geographical area, usually expressed as the number of crimes per head of population per year.

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15
Q

Define

Crime scene analysis

A

The offender profiling approach developed in the US by the FBI. Offenders are assigned to categories based on their behaviour at a crime scene.

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16
Q

Define

Actor-observer effect

A

See fundamental attribution bias

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17
Q

Define

Criminal consistency hypothesis

A

The view that the behaviour of an offender during the committing of a crime will reflect their behaviour in everyday life.

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18
Q

Define

Criminological psychology

A

The application of psychological research to criminal behaviour.

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19
Q

Define

Criminology

A

The study of criminal behaviour. It encompasses a variety of disciplines including psychology, sociology and law.

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20
Q

Define

Dark figure

A

The proportion of crimes that are committed but which are not detected by official crime statistics.

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21
Q

Define

Defensive space

A

Areas (for example, of a residential development) that appear to belong to someone, having clear boundaries against outsiders and characterised by high levels of natural surveillance.

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22
Q

Define

Demand characteristics

A

The cues that are present in an experimental situation that participants may use in order to work out the experimental aim. There is a danger that participants may alter their behaviour in response to demand characteristics, invalidating the experiment.

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23
Q

Define

Deterministic

A

Describes any theory which suggests that people do not have freedom of choice over their actions.

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24
Q

Define

Deviance amplification

A

The tendency of media sources to ‘over-report’ certain types of crime (e.g. Murder), potentially leading members of the public to have an exaggerated idea of the frequency of such crimes.

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25
Define | Disposition attribution
Attributing someone's behaviour to factors internal to then (e.g. Personality)
26
Define | Dizygotic twins
Non-identical twins, sharing the same amount of genetic information as any two siblings.
27
Define | DNA profiling
The use of DNA evidence from crime scenes to identify offenders, link different crimes and eliminate suspects from an enquiry.
28
Define | DSM-III-R
The diagnostic and statistical manual of psychological disorders (third edition, revised). A widely used scheme for classifying and diagnosing psychological disorders, now superseded by DSM-IV.
29
Define | Ecological validity
The extent to which an experimental situation resembles the real-life situation to which researchers wish to generalise. Research that is low in ecological validity may not generalise well to real-life situations.
30
Define | Evidential
Relating to evidence as presented in court.
31
Define | Expert evidence
Legal evidence from an acknowledged expert which is given particular weight because of their expertise.
32
Define | Extra-evidential
Relating to factors (e.g. The appearance of the defendant) other than the evidence presented in courts.
33
Define | Forensic hypnosis
The use of hypnotic techniques in an attempt to improve witness reliability.
34
Define | Forensic psychology
The application of psychological research to the legal system.
35
Define | Fundamental attribution bias
The tendency to make situational attributions for our own behaviour and dispositional ones for others behaviour.
36
Define | Hedonic relevance
A phenomenon whereby our attributions change depending on the degree of relevance a situation has for us.
37
Define | Incidence of crime
The number of crimes that are committed.
38
Define | Inquisitorial system
An alternative trial procedure to the adversarial system, in which the presiding judge(s) controls proceedings, examines witnesses and directs the gathering of evidence.
39
Define | Interrogation
A police interview carried out for the express purpose of extracting a confession from a suspect.
40
Define | Investigative psychology
The application of psychological principles to analyse crimes and apprehend offenders.
41
Define | Juror bias scale
A technique for measuring the degree of prejudice and bias in potential jurors.
42
Define | Just world hypothesis
The belief, held by some people, that the world is a fair and just place in which people deserve the things that happen to them.
43
Define | Labelling theory
The view that the label that is applied to an individual by others (e.g. 'Criminal') can influence their behaviour.
44
Define | Locus of control
The extent to which a person feels they are in charge of their own destiny.
45
Define | Marauder
An offender who operates from a home base.
46
Define | Maternal deprivation theory
The view, associated with the work of John Bowlby, that deviant behaviour in adulthood is the result of separation from the attachment figure early in life b
47
Define | Model
In social learning theory (SLT), a person whose behaviour is observed in order to learn it.
48
Define | Monozygotic twins
Identical twins, who share 100 per cent of their genetic information.
49
Define | Offender profiling
The use of crime scene evidence to make educated guesses about the likely characteristics of an offender.
50
Define | Police and criminal evidence act (PACE)
An act of parliament passed in 1984 that, amongst other things, limited the ways in which police interrogations can be carried out.
51
Define | Prevalence of crime
The number of people in the population involved in committing crimes. Variations in the crime rate can be the result of variations in prevalence (e.g. More people committing crimes) or incidence (e.g. The same number of people committing more crimes)
52
Define | Psycho-legal studies
A branch of forensic psychology concerned with legal processes such as jury decision making.
53
Define | Psychological autopsy
The use of crime scene and psychological evidence to work out possible causes of death.
54
Define | Psychometric testing
The measurement of psychological characteristics, usually through the use of questionnaires or inventories. Such tests may concern intelligence (IQ) or personality and generally yield numerical measurements of the attribute being investigated.
55
Define | Psychopath
An individual who appears to lack anxiety and guilt and is typically prone to impulsive and aggressive behaviour. Such individuals are likely to become involved in crime although it should be stressed that not all psychopaths become criminals.
56
Define | Rational choice theory (RCT)
An approach to understanding criminality that emphasises the role of rotational processes in the decision to commit a crime.
57
Define | Reconstructive memory
The view that memories, rather than being accurate accounts of events, are 'imaginative reconstructions' based on schematic knowledge.
58
Define | Schema
A cognitive structure into which knowledge is organised in order to make sense of objects, people and situations in the world.
59
Define | Self-fulfilling prophecy
A prediction that comes true because it has been made. Related to labelling theory.
60
Define | Self-serving attribution bias
The tendency to attribute our successes to dispositional factors and our failures to situational ones.
61
Define | Situational attribution
Attributing someone's behaviour to factors external to them.
62
Define | Social cognition
The processes by which we make sense of other people and their actions.
63
Define | Social learning theory
The view that behaviour is primarily learned from observations of models.
64
Define | Social skills training
An attempt to reduce aggressive behaviour by equipping offenders with the skills to manage interactions more effectively.
65
Define | Socio-economic status (SES)
A way of classifying people in terms of their occupational background and economic circumstances. Low SES generally implies manual or semi/unskilled occupation, lower income and fewer years in education, high SES the converse.
66
Define | Somatotype
Bodily build, classified as endomorph (fat), ectomorph (thin) and mesomorph (muscular). According to some early theorists, such as sheldon, different personality types are associated with the different somatotypes.
67
Define | Special weapons and tactics (SWAT)
In the US, a branch of the police force involved mainly in special operations, such as hostage-taking incidents.
68
Define | Standard interview procedure
The usual method by which police interviews are conducted.
69
Define | Story order
An evidence strategy in which witnesses appear in the sequence in which events occurred. Considered more effective than witness order.
70
Define | Television technique
A hypnotic technique in which a witness is encouraged to imagine an event as if seen on television.
71
Define | Testosterone
A male sex hormone the main role of which is to promote sexual development and behaviour. However, it may also influence a range of other behaviours including aggression.
72
Define | Token economy
An attempt to reduce offending behaviour by selectively reinforcing desirable behaviours within an institution.
73
Define | VICAP
The violent criminal apprehension programme. An FBI database of violent offences used to generate offender profiles.
74
Define | Victim derogation
The tendency to blame a victim for their own misfortune. Related to belief in a just world (see just world hypothesis).
75
Define | Victimisation survey
A technique for measuring the crime rate which, instead of relying on crime statistics as reported by the police, surveys a sample of the population about their experiences of crime. Victimisation surveys typically reveal a higher incidence of crime than police figures.
76
Define | Violence distraction
The tendency for witnesses of violent events to produce poorer testimony than witnesses of non-violent events, either because of the detrimental effect of arousal on memory or possibly due to weapon focus.
77
Define | Weapon focus
The tendency for witnesses of violent crimes to focus on the weapon used, generally resulting in poorer recall of other aspects of the event.
78
Define | Witness order
An evidence strategy in which witnesses appear in the order seemed most likely to persuade the jury. Considered less effective than story order.
79
Define | Zero tolerance
An approach to the prevention of serious crime based on vigorous police response to minor infractions of the law.
80
Define | Testosterone
A male sex hormone the main role of which is to promote sexual development and behaviour. However, it may also influence a range of other behaviours including aggression.
81
Define | Token economy
An attempt to reduce offending behaviour by selectively reinforcing desirable behaviours within an institution.
82
Define | VICAP
The violent criminal apprehension programme. An FBI database of violent offences used to generate offender profiles.
83
Define | Victim derogation
The tendency to blame a victim for their own misfortune. Related to belief in a just world (see just world hypothesis).
84
Define | Victimisation survey
A technique for measuring the crime rate which, instead of relying on crime statistics as reported by the police, surveys a sample of the population about their experiences of crime. Victimisation surveys typically reveal a higher incidence of crime than police figures.
85
Define | Violence distraction
The tendency for witnesses of violent events to produce poorer testimony than witnesses of non-violent events, either because of the detrimental effect of arousal on memory or possibly due to weapon focus.
86
Define | Weapon focus
The tendency for witnesses of violent crimes to focus on the weapon used, generally resulting in poorer recall of other aspects of the event.
87
Define | Witness order
An evidence strategy in which witnesses appear in the order seemed most likely to persuade the jury. Considered less effective than story order.
88
Define | Zero tolerance
An approach to the prevention of serious crime based on vigorous police response to minor infractions of the law.

AS Criminology (11 decks)

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