Paper 3 Flashcards
Hazelwood (1980)
First made the distinction between organised and disorganised offenders
▪︎organised= planned, intelligent, removes weapon, married or family, charming
▪︎disorganised= unplanned, low intelligence, leaves evidence, poor employment, lives alone
Jackson (1997)
Top down approach
Criteria that enabled the FBI to make a profile
1) data assimilation
2) crime classification
3) crime reconstruction
4) profile generation
Canter et al (2004)
Top down profiling
Argued it was oversimplification to reduce crimibals to organised and disorganised
Canter etc al (2004)
Bottom up approach
Aim to produce offender profiles on objective data
1) interpersonal coherence
2) time and place
3) criminal career
4) forensic awareness
Canter and young (2000)
Geographical profiling
Identified the principles of geographical profiling
1) locatedness
2) crime location choice
3) centrality
4) comparative case analysis
John Duffy- railway rapist (case study)
Geographical profiling
Used David canters profile to identify killer. Produced and incorrect profile but Elements still helped to identify Duffy
Aims of custodial sentencing
1) incapacitating
2) rehabilitation
3) retribution
4) deterrence
》individual
》society
What is Free Will
The idea that we play an active role and have a choice how we behave.
We are self determined
What is determinism?
The view the free will is an illusion and our behaviour is governed by internal and external forces out of our control.
How do Twin Studies contradict free will
Monozygotic twins have an 80% similarity in intelligence and 40% in depression.
Suggests only 20% is other factors/ “free will”
Mobeley
limitation of determinism
Argued he was “born to kill, as his family had a disposition to violence.
so determinism provides and excuse for crime.
Libet et al
free will limitation
Argues free will is an illusion
Found motor regions become active before a person has conscious awareness
Biological determinism defintion
The idea that all behaviour is innate and determined by genes
Environmental determinism
Behaviour is caused by external forces and previous experience (link to mowrer conditioning)
Psychic Determinism
Behaviour is a result of childhood experiences and innate drives (links to Freud tripartite model)
Soft determinism
Behaviour is constrained by environment or genetics but only to a certain extent
Hard determinism
Incompatible with free will as forces shape our behaviour
Idiographic Defintion
Focuses on small groups and the individual. Emphasises unique personal experience
Uses qualitative data such as case studies
Nomothetic defintion
Focuses on large groups and tries to establish general laws.
Uses quantitative data such as correlations, psychometric tests and experiments
Strengths of idiographic
It is useful for evaluating theories.
For example patient KF exposed limitations of the MSM
Weaknesses of Idiogrpahic approach
- Unable to produce general laws or behaviour
- Can’t generalise finding
Strengths of nomothetic
- Controlled methods so can be replicated so high reliability
- useful to predict and control behaviour
Weakness of nomothetic approach
- Fixation on quantitative methods provides superficial; understanding of behaviour
Holt
idiographic and nomothetic
Argues the distinction between idiographic and nomothetic is false and psychology should take advantage of both sides
Sieber and Stanley
social sensitivity
Describes studies where there are potential social consequences for the ppts
1) The research question
2) Methodology used
3) Institutional context
4) Interpretation and application on findings
Cyril Burt
View that intelligence is genetic which influenced the Hadow Report leading to the construction of the 11+
Later found that Burt had falsified his data
Weakness of ethical implications
- current ethical guidelines do not address other ways research may inflict harm
- leads to the avoidance of topics such as ethnicity and sexuality
- Leads to discrimination ie involuntary sterilisation was justified by flawed research on IQ and race
Flin et al
Support of ethical implications
Found young children can be reliable witnesses if they are questioned in a timely and appropriate manner.
Ceci et al
weakness of ethical implication
Should be free to carry out research as it is resulting in censorship.
Found rejection rate was 2x as high for socially sensitive research
Psychological explanations for offending
- Eyesenck criminal personality
- Bowlby’s MDH
- Differential Association Theory by Sutherland
Cognitive explanations for offending
- Levels of Moral Reasoning- Kohlberg
- Cognitive distortions
Differential Association Theory
Sutherland (1939)
Suggested that we can measure how likely people are to commit crimes based on the exposure they have ie friendships
So criminal behaviour is learnt and imitated
Hollin (1989)
Differential Association Theory
Someone may be against stealing but not against false tax returns
so supports the idea of ‘white collar crimes’
Eyesneck Criminal personality
Extraversion- the need to have high levels of stimulation
Neuroticism- how stable a persons nervous system is
Psychoticism- The degree to which you are antisocial, aggressive, and uncaring
Howitt (2009)
Criminal personality
Eyesneck’s test shows a link between personality and crime, but does not tell us why they committed a crime
Eyesenck
Support for criminal personality
Found male offenders score highly on psychoticism and neuroticism
Female offenders score highly on all 3
Kohlberg stages of moral reasoning
Level 1- Preconventional
Level 2- Conventional
Level 3- Post conventional
Looked at the way that offenders grow in moral reasoning using Heinz’ dilemma
Gilligan
Moral reasoning
Kohlbergs theory is androcentric as males morality is law based, whereas female morality is compassion and care
Thornton
Moral reasoning
Burglars tend to be at level 1 whereas more violent crimes ie assault are higher
Rosen
Moral reasoning
Kohlbergs theory lacks validity as it was conducted on 11-16 year olds who have never been married etc so a different perspective
What are the cognitive distortions
- Hostile attribution bias (more likely to interpret ambiguous actions ad hostile)
- Minimalisation (More likely to downplay the severity of crime to reduce guilt)
Capello
Hostile attribution bias
Adult male offenders are more likely to interpret ambiguous sentences as aggressive
Kennedy
Minimalisation
Majority of sex offenders blame victim
1/4 believe it was a positive thing
Aitchorn
Psychodynamic explanation to offending
An underdeveloped superego leads to a dominant ID which leads to criminal behaviour as more impulsive
Overdeveloped superego leads to feelings of guilt so many commit crimes and then are caught to releases themselves from this guilt
Deviant Superego when a child internalises the criminal behaviour of the same sex parent
