Glossary Flashcards
Define
Adversarial system
A trial procedure in which prosecution and defence teams compete to establish the truth of their version of events.
Define
Age regression
A hypnotic technique in which the witness is ‘taken back’ to the age at which they witnessed a crime in order to ‘relive it’.
Define
Amygdala
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.
Define
Anger management
An attempt to reduce aggressive behaviour by helping violent offenders to deal with inappropriate feelings of anger.
Define
Attributions
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.
Define
Attribution theory
A branch of psychology that aims to explain how people arrive at attributions.
Define
Behavioural evidence
Evidence from the disposition of clues at the crime scene that indicates how the crime was committed.
Define
British crime survey (BCS)
A victimisation survey carried out periodically by the home office in an attempt to discover the true incidence of crime in the uk.
Define
Cognitive-behavioural therapy
A form of psychological therapy that aims to alter maladaptive thinking strategies through behavioural techniques.
Define
Cognitive interview
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.
Define
Commuter
An offender who travels some distance to offend.
Define
Conspecifics
Members of the same species
Define
Copycat crime
A crime which is purportedly carried out in the style of another crime, real or fictional.
Define
Crime rate
The incidence of crime for a given geographical area, usually expressed as the number of crimes per head of population per year.
Define
Crime scene analysis
The offender profiling approach developed in the US by the FBI. Offenders are assigned to categories based on their behaviour at a crime scene.
Define
Actor-observer effect
See fundamental attribution bias
Define
Criminal consistency hypothesis
The view that the behaviour of an offender during the committing of a crime will reflect their behaviour in everyday life.
Define
Criminological psychology
The application of psychological research to criminal behaviour.
Define
Criminology
The study of criminal behaviour. It encompasses a variety of disciplines including psychology, sociology and law.
Define
Dark figure
The proportion of crimes that are committed but which are not detected by official crime statistics.
Define
Defensive space
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.
Define
Demand characteristics
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.
Define
Deterministic
Describes any theory which suggests that people do not have freedom of choice over their actions.
Define
Deviance amplification
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.
Define
Disposition attribution
Attributing someone’s behaviour to factors internal to then (e.g. Personality)
Define
Dizygotic twins
Non-identical twins, sharing the same amount of genetic information as any two siblings.
Define
DNA profiling
The use of DNA evidence from crime scenes to identify offenders, link different crimes and eliminate suspects from an enquiry.
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.
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.
Define
Evidential
Relating to evidence as presented in court.
Define
Expert evidence
Legal evidence from an acknowledged expert which is given particular weight because of their expertise.
Define
Extra-evidential
Relating to factors (e.g. The appearance of the defendant) other than the evidence presented in courts.
Define
Forensic hypnosis
The use of hypnotic techniques in an attempt to improve witness reliability.
Define
Forensic psychology
The application of psychological research to the legal system.
Define
Fundamental attribution bias
The tendency to make situational attributions for our own behaviour and dispositional ones for others behaviour.
Define
Hedonic relevance
A phenomenon whereby our attributions change depending on the degree of relevance a situation has for us.
Define
Incidence of crime
The number of crimes that are committed.
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.
Define
Interrogation
A police interview carried out for the express purpose of extracting a confession from a suspect.
Define
Investigative psychology
The application of psychological principles to analyse crimes and apprehend offenders.
Define
Juror bias scale
A technique for measuring the degree of prejudice and bias in potential jurors.
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.
Define
Labelling theory
The view that the label that is applied to an individual by others (e.g. ‘Criminal’) can influence their behaviour.
Define
Locus of control
The extent to which a person feels they are in charge of their own destiny.
Define
Marauder
An offender who operates from a home base.
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
Define
Model
In social learning theory (SLT), a person whose behaviour is observed in order to learn it.
Define
Monozygotic twins
Identical twins, who share 100 per cent of their genetic information.
Define
Offender profiling
The use of crime scene evidence to make educated guesses about the likely characteristics of an offender.
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.
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)
Define
Psycho-legal studies
A branch of forensic psychology concerned with legal processes such as jury decision making.
Define
Psychological autopsy
The use of crime scene and psychological evidence to work out possible causes of death.
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.
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.
Define
Rational choice theory (RCT)
An approach to understanding criminality that emphasises the role of rotational processes in the decision to commit a crime.
Define
Reconstructive memory
The view that memories, rather than being accurate accounts of events, are ‘imaginative reconstructions’ based on schematic knowledge.
Define
Schema
A cognitive structure into which knowledge is organised in order to make sense of objects, people and situations in the world.
Define
Self-fulfilling prophecy
A prediction that comes true because it has been made. Related to labelling theory.
Define
Self-serving attribution bias
The tendency to attribute our successes to dispositional factors and our failures to situational ones.
Define
Situational attribution
Attributing someone’s behaviour to factors external to them.
Define
Social cognition
The processes by which we make sense of other people and their actions.
Define
Social learning theory
The view that behaviour is primarily learned from observations of models.
Define
Social skills training
An attempt to reduce aggressive behaviour by equipping offenders with the skills to manage interactions more effectively.
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.
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.
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.
Define
Standard interview procedure
The usual method by which police interviews are conducted.
Define
Story order
An evidence strategy in which witnesses appear in the sequence in which events occurred. Considered more effective than witness order.
Define
Television technique
A hypnotic technique in which a witness is encouraged to imagine an event as if seen on television.
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.
Define
Token economy
An attempt to reduce offending behaviour by selectively reinforcing desirable behaviours within an institution.
Define
VICAP
The violent criminal apprehension programme. An FBI database of violent offences used to generate offender profiles.
Define
Victim derogation
The tendency to blame a victim for their own misfortune. Related to belief in a just world (see just world hypothesis).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Define
Zero tolerance
An approach to the prevention of serious crime based on vigorous police response to minor infractions of the law.
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.
Define
Token economy
An attempt to reduce offending behaviour by selectively reinforcing desirable behaviours within an institution.
Define
VICAP
The violent criminal apprehension programme. An FBI database of violent offences used to generate offender profiles.
Define
Victim derogation
The tendency to blame a victim for their own misfortune. Related to belief in a just world (see just world hypothesis).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Define
Zero tolerance
An approach to the prevention of serious crime based on vigorous police response to minor infractions of the law.
