short answer criminal psychology exam questions Flashcards
Describe one biological treatment for offenders?
- One biological treatment for offenders is hormone therapy - chemical castration.
- The rationale behind this treatment is that high testosterone causes aggression and violent crime so if the level of hormones are reduced, crime will also be reduced.
- Varying doses of anti-androgens (counteract effects of androgens) are given via injections depending on offenders levels of testosterone daily, weekly, or monthly. One example is MPA which is given to offenders to reduce their levels of testosterone by inhibiting lutenising hormones. It can also increase recidivism.
Explain one strength of a biological treatment for offenders?
P: One strength is that there is a supporting study from Maletzky.
E: Maletzky studies 275 males from Oregon where 60% of offenders were of sexual nature, and found that 0% of males who received MPA treatment re offended in comparison to 58.8% of those who needed the treatment and didn’t receive it.
E: Therefore, it proves that lowering testosterone levels via use of MPA did reduce the sexual thoughts and fantasises of previous sexual offenders and so is an effective treatment to reduce crime levels and recidivism.
- Explain one weakness of Alicia collecting quantitative data for her experiment?
- Explain one improvement Alicia could make to her experiment?
- One weakness if that participants could not state the context behind why they thought that the manager would or would not commit assault or fraud.
- Therefore, her data will lack detail due to only numerical values from 1 to 10 being collected regarding the likelihood or unlikelihood of the manager committing assault or fraud.
- One improvement Alicia could make to her experiment is using independent design instead of repeated measures. So, participants are either being exposed to condition A of assault or condition B of fraud, not both.
- This would be an improvement as it could reduce possible demand characteristics the participants might show from previously being exposed to the other scenario.
Describe one theory of personality as an explanation of crime and anti-social behaviour?
- One theory of personality is Eysenck’s theory.
- Eysenck states that criminal behaviour is due to the interaction between personality and the environment and that certain personality types lend themselves to antisocial behaviour.
- The reticular activating system of extroverts leads to under
arousal so extroverts may engage in anti-social behaviour to increase their arousal. The
sympathetic systems of the autonomic nervous system may be more active for longer, leading to impulsive behaviour which may be anti-social or
criminal.
Identify the sampling technique used by Brie in her experiment?
- Brie used an opportunity sample as she used people who were available at that time in the refectory that lunch time.
Brie used an independent groups experimental/research design. Compare independent groups and matched pairs experimental/research designs
as used in criminological psychology?
- Independent groups design and matched pairs design both have different criminals in each of the conditions of the study into anti-social behaviour as not one of the same group is in both of the conditions.
- In matched pairs design, the experimenter will match the criminals into groups based off of certain characteristics, for example they type of crime they have committed. However, in independent groups design, they are not matched into groups based on characteristics and is just random.
- Due to these types of designs only involving participants in one condition and not all participants involved in all conditions, there is a less chance of demand characteristics being presented, unlike, repeated measures which is seen as advantageous.
Explain why Marya used the mean rather than the mode in her field experiment?
- The mean gathers all of the 10 criminals reoffending rates and uses it as an average.
- But with the mode, it would only use the most frequent number of reoffending rates and so not as representative.
Explain one improvement Marya could make to her field experiment?
- Marya could add a condition C where a group reoffenders are being treated with hormone therapy.
- This would be an improvement as Marya could then compare the results of the reoffending rates between the two treatments and see which one is more effective at reducing recidivism.
Describe how one cognitive-behavioural treatment could be used by Helen for
the offenders at the prison?
- Helen could use CBT for the offenders at the prison. Helen can use anger management programmes on the burglars. This is the idea that if anger is reduced in these burglars, then there will be less aggression and so less theft that they commit. Her main aim will be to make the burglars aware of the triggers by which the become angry and feel they need to steal something and how they can control these.
- Firstly, Helen can run 24 two-hour sessions at the Egton prison and work with the burglars individually or in small groups of 5 -10 criminals.
- There are 3 stages involved in her programme; cognitive preparation, skill acquisition, and application practice. The first stage will involve identifying the situations they are likely to evoke anger in, for example, if someone disagrees with them so their thought processes can be challenged and assess how these processed influence them committing burglary. The second stage involves coping skills that help them deal with anger for example, trying breathing techniques like the ‘stop and start method’. The final stage is were the offenders can play in scenarios to practice their new anger skills. For example, them in a shop and someone is annoying them so they try and shoplift.
Explain one strength of one cognitive-behavioural treatment for offenders?
P: There is supporting evidence.
E: This comes from Keen who reported that the outcome of an anger management programme in 1995. He found that overall, the course members did report they have increased their awareness of their anger management difficulties and they feel they have a greater capacity to exercise self-control in previously challenging situations.
E: Therefore, this shows that CBT can be an effective treatment for violent criminals.
Explain one weakness of one cognitive-behavioural treatment for offenders?
P: One weakness is that it may not be suitable for all offenders.
E: This is because in order to find successful outcomes in this type of treatment, offenders have to be motivated and willing to be more aware of their triggers that causes them to be angry and learning coping mechanism to reduce their criminal behaviour as treatment will be targeted to inaccurate thoughts. Furthermore, a biased sample may then be produced as offenders who are felt will work well with the therapy will be picked.
E: Therefore, could lead to a biased sample successful results may not be available for some offenders due to their motivation levels
Benito carried out some research into the effects of anger management treatment
with offenders. He recorded the number of aggressive acts offenders displayed. The
offenders who had anger management treatment had a mean score of 3.4 aggressive
acts. The offenders who did not have anger management treatment had a mean
score of 7.9 aggressive acts.
State which statistical test Benito would use to analyse his data?
State three reasons why Benito would use the statistical test you identified?
Mann Whitney U Test.
- It is a test for difference between those who did have anger management and those who did not have anger management.
- An independent groups design was used.
- The data is ordinal (qualitative data).
Benito used a random sample.
Describe how he would have selected his sample?
- Benito could put all of the names of the offenders into a random name generator.
- Then randomly generate these names until have the correct number of offenders with anger management programmes or without anger management programmes.
Describe XYY syndrome as an explanation of crime and anti-social behaviour?
- XYY syndrome focuses on the abnormalities in chromosomal makeup that happen randomly in the majority of the population where a human male has an extra Y chromosome within the 23rd pair so they have 47 chromosomes instead of 46 chromosomes.
- There is evidence that their intelligence may be slightly lower and some may have learning difficulties.
- Furthermore, some physical characteristics of males with XYY syndrome may be acne, long arms, tall and curved pinky fingers.
- In regards to the commonality of this syndrome, 1 in 1000 men have this chromosomal abnormality in the general population whereas there are 15 in every 1000 men with this XYY syndrome in the prison population, proving that it can lead to anti-social behaviour.
Another explanation of crime and anti-social behaviour is the influence of
personality.
Explain one strength of personality as a factor that influences crime and
anti-social behaviour?
P: One strength of Eysenck’s personality theory for criminal behaviour is a supporting study.
E: Rushton and ChristJohn (1981) compared Extraversion-Introversion (E), Neuroticism-Stability (N), and Psychoticism (P) scores with self reports of delinquency in school children and students. They found that those with a higher level of delinquency scored higher on E,P, and N.
E: Therefore, supports Eysenck’s theory that these personalities could possible cause criminal behaviour for example, due to lack of empathy for victims due to high psychoticism score.
