Week 9-Causal model of Crime

Question 1

How many people have been imprisoned since March 2023?

Answer 1

5.7% in the 12 months have actually been imprisoned or summonsed with recorded crimes in March 2023 including no suspect identified (39.3%) and no evidence identified (39.5%)

Question 2

Give some examples of crime

Answer 2

-Fraud and forgery

-Sexual offences

-Hate crime

-Domestic crime

-Gun crime

-Crime isn’t a single behaviour and lists all these different offending behaviours above

-Being critical with theories is whether it can effectively describe each individual factor above

Question 3

What biological basis for criminality?

Answer 3

-Criminals are biologically different to non-criminals - either from birth or brain injury

-Biological differences leads to an inability to learn and follow rules which leads to criminal behaviour

-Growing body of evidence that suggests a link between predisposition to offend and genetic, hormonal or neurobiological factors (Beech et al., 2018)

-These biological differences prevent criminals from learning right from wrong

Question 4

How do criminals and non-criminals differ neurologically?

Answer 4

-Activation of brain areas associated with emotional regulation differ between criminals and non-criminals (Hofhansel et al., 2020). Conduct disordered males show reduced activity in left amygdalae when viewing negative pictures (Kleinschmidt & Poustka, 2005) Kleinschmidt suggests a difference in emotional regulation.

-Neuropsychological deficits - executive dysfunction (Moffitt, 1993) Moffitt suggests a difference in information regulation and processing. And lower verbal IQ (Brennan et al., 2003), with individuals with higher verbal IQ more likely to avoid arrest (Boccio et al., 2018)

-Increased delinquent behaviour in youths with history of traumatic brain injury - executive functioning and impulse control (Caswell et al., 2004)

Question 5

What do neurological findings indicate about offenders?

Answer 5

-Less sensitive to punishment and more sensitive to possible rewards

-Less able to plan, act in a rationally self-interested manner, control impulses or respond flexibly to problems encountered

HOWEVER…
-Participants are mostly male and sample sizes are small

-Offender populations - possible neurological differences between offenders who are caught and those who evade direction?

-Sample typically includes people who have been arrested (I think as those who evade detection would likely not bring up crimes to avoid being arrested)

Question 6

What’s the link with Genetics and criminality?

Answer 6

-Meta-analysis of 100+ behavioural genetic studies - 40-50% of variance in antisocial behavioural due to genetic inheritance (Rhee & Waldman, 2002)

-Study of 862 Swedish male adoptees - genetic influences are the most significant contributer to later criminal behaviour (Cloninger et al., 1982).

-Looking at a cluster of genes rather than specific ones in this case on top half

HOWEVER…
-Growing evidence to suggest gene/environment interaction e.g., ‘warrior gene’ (MAO-A) has no overall effect on antisocial behaviour but low MAO-A activity + childhood abuse = increased adult aggression (Frazzetto et al., 2007; Fritz et al., 2021)

Question 7

How can similar biological predispositions be associated with different behaviour outcomes?

Answer 7

Example:
Both bomb disposal experts and those with a capacity to violence (males and females) have lower resting heart rates - suggesting physiological under arousal (Raine, 2013)

-Indicates that not all biological predispositions necessarily indicate someone as a criminal

-We don’t fully understand the interaction, however there is growing research within this

Question 8

What’s the Personality Theory?

Answer 8

-Links with biological explanations - underlying mechanisms that contribute toward personality believed to be biological (impulse control)

-Offending is natural and rational as humans as hedonistic, seek pleasure and avoid pain (Eysenck, 1996)
-Delinquent acts essentially pleasurable and beneficial for the offender - e.g., theft, violence, vandalism

-Most people do not offend because of their conscience (conditioned fear response that opposes hedonistic tendencies)
-Developed in childhood through punishment for disapproval acts - classical conditioning

-Biological underpinnings but this theory extends to how this causes people to commit crimes

-Our collectivist society in a way protects us from becoming a criminal in some cases

Question 9

What types of personality traits are more likely in criminals?

Answer 9

Offenders have not developed strong consciences due to poor conditionality. More likely in people:
-High on extraversion due to low cortical arousal (stops punishment from having as big an impact as rewards)
-They’ve not been able to appropriately learn through reward and punishment mechanisms

-High on neurocitism as high resting levels of anxiety interfere with conditioning and reinforce existing behavioural tendencies

-High on psychotism (low empathy, impulsive, emotionally cold, hostile, egocentric) - more likely to offend because these traits are typicals of criminals

Question 10

What evidence is there linking personality traits to offenders?

Answer 10

-Neuroticism related to official offending: high extraversion related to self-reported offending. High psychotism related to both official and self-reported offending (Farrington et al., 1982)
-Official offending=actually been in court for them
-Self-reported offending=not been in court but have stated crimes done

-Impulsiveness appears to be strongest personality trait predictor of offending (Blackburn, 1993; Jolliffe & Farrington, 2009)
-Similar to biological approaches, implicates impulse control but suggests that this causes offending by preventing development of a conscience - give in to primal, hedonistic desires

HOWEVER…
-Problems with ‘impulsiveness’ being poorly defined and operationalised (Farrington & Ttofi, 2018)

-Lots of study investigate impulsiveness but don’t actually state what they mean by impulsiveness so unsure whether you can compare and amalgamate them as they may be looking at slightly different things

Question 11

What is a mentally disordered offender?

Answer 11

-Increased prevalence of mental disorders amongst criminal populations compared to general population, and higher levels of offending (Steadman et al., 2009)

Mental disorders can include:
-Illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression
-Intellectual disabilities
-Personality disorders

HOWEVER…
-Questions raised as to whether disorders cause offending or association caused by other factors (Van Dorn et al., 2012)

-Studies conducted with convicted offenders - difference between convicted and non-convicted?

-Additionally does imprisonment and prison conditions enhance disorders

Question 12

What is Psychopathy?

Answer 12

-A severe personality disorder strongly linked with antisocial behaviour - callous disregard for others, lack of behavioural controls

-Suggestion that psychopathy be viewed as a dimension rather than taxonomy as psychopathic traits can be observed in the general population (Hare & Neumann, 2008)

-CU (callous unemotional) traits in children are stable through to adolescence, and predictive of psychopathy in adulthood (Burke et al., 2007)

-Psychopathy mirrors psychoticism in the personality theory

-Taxonomy i.e., you’re a psychopath and you’re not

-CU means a lack of empathy and identification with others

Question 13

What’s the argument for psychopathy in offenders?

Answer 13

-Limited ability to learn when actions are causing distress in childhood compromises early moral socialisation, resulting in greater aggressive behaviour and crime in later life (Gao et al., 2010)

-Inability to detect facial expressions that signal distress in others leaves psychopaths open to repeatedly behaving in fear inducing ways (Blair, 2001)

-Gillespie et al. (2015) showed different intensities of fear expression (couldn’t detect the lower intensities? CHECK THIS)

-Evidence that psychopaths have compromised ability to make aversive conditioned associations, related to abnormal amygdala functioning (Birbaumer et al., 2005)

-Limited ability to understand emotions and interpret fear in others to empathise with them leading to callous disregard

Question 14

What is the prevalence of psychopathy in the UK and what is psychopathy associated with?

Answer 14

-Estimated prevalence of psychopathy in the UK is 0.6% but approx 7-8% in UK prison populations (Coid et al., 2009)

-Psychopathy associated with high levels of general, violent and sexual recidivism (Hemphill et al., 1998)

-Psychopathy in adults (Blair, 2001) and CU in children (Frick et al., 2003) associated with instrumental aggression to achieve a goal (rather than reactuve)

-Majority of murders committed by psychopaths were for instrumental reasons (Woodworth et al., 2003)

-It’s quite difficult to develop treatments to prevent recidivism in psychopaths compared to other offenders

Question 15

What are some issues with research into psychopathy?

Answer 15

-Debate regarding whether antisocial behaviour represents a core psychopathic personality trait or a behavioural consequence of a collection of traits (Skeem & Cooke, 2010)

-Most crimes are not committed by psychopaths and not all psychopaths are criminals (Mahmut et al., 2008)

-Some psychopaths don’t offend and can have successful careers being a functional member in society

Question 16

Despite the causes of psychopathy not yet being fully understood, what does the evidence suggest?

Answer 16

-Evidence suggests biological differences in areas of the brain associated with empathy/morality (Gregory et al., 2012)

-Environmental factors such as parental separation, lack of parental supervision and parental conviction also linked to amoral characteristics of psychopathy (Raine, 2013)

Question 17

What is Bowlby’s (1969) Attachment Theory?

Answer 17

-Primary attachment figure acts a secure base for exploring the world (mother viewed to be key)

-Attachment relationship leads to development of an internal working model for understanding the world, self and others

-The internal working model is a blueprint for our relationships with other

This influences contact with others and evaluation of these interactions:
1. Model of others as being trustworthy
2. Model of the self as valuable
3. Model of the self as effective when interacting with others

Question 18

What is the effect of disrupting the primary attachment relationship?

Answer 18

-Disrupting the primary attachment relationship for a prolonged period is likely to have irreversible negative effects on cognition, social interactions and emotions

Long-term consequences could include:
-Delinquency
-Reduced intelligence
-Increased aggression
-Depression
-Affectionless psychopathy - acting on impulse with little regard for others, lack of guilt, inability to form meaningful and lasting relationships

-Main research done by Ainsworth or Bowlby

-Affects our ability to form meaningful relationships with others

Question 19

What did Bowlby (1951) find in his juvenile study?

Answer 19

-Comparison of 44 juvenile thieves/44 controls

-Almost 40% of juvenile thieves separated from mothers for 6+ months during the first 5 years compared with 4.5% of control

-1/3 had affectionless character compared to 0 controls

Question 20

What were the issues with Bowlby’s (1951) study?

Answer 20

-Recall data - memories may not be accurate

-Potential experimenter bias - affected how questions were asked and how data was interpreted

-Bowlby concluded that maternal deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy - correlational data

-Other external variables not measured may have affected behaviour, e.g., family conflict, income, education etc.,

Question 21

How can loss of a mother and abuse influence offender behaviour?

Answer 21

-Loss of mother a stronger predictor of delinquency than loss of father (Juby & Farrington, 2001)

-History of abuse and disturbed attachment associated with lack of empathy and violent criminality (Saltaris, 2002)

HOWEVER…
-Separation from either biological parent during first 5 years linked to higher levels of offending (Kolvin et al., 1998)

Not just a broken home, parental conflict also a factor:
-Offending higher for boys from broken homes with affectionless mothers (62%) and unbroken houses with conflict (52%)
-Lower for unbroken homes without conflict (26%) and broken homes with affectionate mothers (22%) (McCord, 1982)

-Criticism is demonising mother rather than father for offending

-May have a nuclear family but damaged communications +conflict can cause delinquency

-Suggests there can be protective factors such as healthy communicative relationships

Question 22

What is the Social Learning Theory?

Answer 22

-Criminal behaviours is learned. Attitudes that support offending and behaviours for committing crimes learned in the family or peer group

-40% of sons with criminal fathers also had criminal conviction by age 18 compared to 13% of sons with non-criminal fathers (Osborne & West, 1979)

-Juvenile delinquents more likely to report having peers who engage in criminal activity than non-delinquents

-Additionally seeing someone being rewarded for crimes increases likelihood for commiting crimes in later life with an opposite effect seen for seeing someone being punished for crimes

-Relates in a way to ‘birds of a feather flock together’

Question 23

Patterson’s SLT: What deficiency do parents demonstrate in antisocial children?

Answer 23

-Parents of antisocial children demonstrate deficiencies in child rearing practises (Patterson et al., 1992)

-Fails to tell children how they are expected to behave, monitor behaviour, or enforce rules at appropriate time and unambiguously with appropriate rewards and sanctions

-Makes it difficult to child to understand what is appropriate and what is inappropriate

-Parents use more punishment but inconsistently and do not make it contingent on child’s behaviour

-Can lead to juvenile offending behaviours e.g., they’ll let you do negative behaviours but then negatively snap and yell punishing child

-Focuses on parental styles and how the reward and punishment systems work

Question 24

Patterson’s SLT: What is the impact when a child is raised in a coercive family?

Answer 24

-Children raised in coercive families learn to use coercive behaviour

-Parent shouts at/threatens child, child shouts back, parent stops being coercive. Child learns to use hostile reactions to end hostile situations

-Skillful parents use rewards for positive behaviours and ignores or uses time out for undesirable behaviours

-Consistent and contingent parental reactions + careful monitoring of children’s behaviour prevent delinquency (Snyder et al., 2003)

Question 25

Patterson’s SLT: What are some strong predictors of offending?

Answer 25

-Poor parental supervision is a strong predictor of offending (Smith & Stern, 1997)

-Parental reinforcement is also a predictor

-Physical punishment at age 7 and 11 predicted later convictions - 40% offenders smacked/beaten at age 11 vs 14% non-offenders (Newson & Newson, 1989)

-Harsh or erratic parental discipline and cruel, passive or neglecting attitudes predicted convictions for original sample and their sons - 2 successive generations of males (Farrington et al., 2015)

Question 26

What are some issues with Patterson’s SLT?

Answer 26

-Much of the supporting evidence is based on self-reflection of childhood - accuracy of memory?

-Not all offenders recall parental upbringing as problematic and not all children raised with poorer parental practises end up committing offences

-For SLT in general, patterns linking parent and peer influences to offending tend to be for petty acts (e.g., vandalism)

-Data tends to be correlational - problems inferring causality

Question 27

Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential Theory (ICAP): What was Farrington’s Cambridge Study?

Answer 27

-411 South London boys

Prospective longitudinal methods (Still ongoing today):
-Personal interviews from age 8-46
-Tests of individual characteristics, intelligence, attainment, personality and impulsivity
-Parental details of background, child rearing practises
-Teachers and CBR checks

-By age 40, 40% convicted - commonly for theft (doesn’t use force), burglary (uses force), vehicle theft

-Peak age of offending 17; peak age for prevalence of offending 14; peak age for decreased offending 23

Question 28

What’s the ICAP theory?

Answer 28

-ICAP theory influence by results of Cambridge study-looking at risk factors for crime

-Designed to explain offending by lower class males

-Integrates aspects of several theories - strain, control, learning, labelling and rational choice (Cote, 2002)

-Key construct is antisocial potential (AP) - potential to commit anti-social acts

-Transferring from antisocial potential to behaviour depends on cognitive processes that considers opportunities and victims - decisions to turn the potential into reality

Question 29

How and why is ICAP placed onto a continuum?

Answer 29

-People can be placed on a continuum from low to high AP

-Few people have high AP, but those that do are more likely to commit crimes

-Primary factors that influence high AP are desire for material gain, peer status, excitement and sexual satisfaction

-Whether factors influence behaviour depends on if the person can use legitimate means to satisfy them

-Males from low-income families with low academic attainment who are unemployed are more likely to engage in antisocial behaviour and crime (This is due to limited access to desired resources through positive means)

Question 30

ICAP: What are Long-term between-individual and short-term within-individual variations in AP?

Answer 30

LT:
-Poorer families, socially impulsive and sensation seeking, poorly socialised and have a low IQ

-Ordering of people tends to be consistent over time but levels vary with age - peak in teenage years due to changes in factors that influence LT AP (e.g., increased importance of peers, decreased importance of parents)

ST:
-Situational factors such as frustration, anger, boredom or alcohol

-This is what may impact the antisocial potential (AP)

-May explain why offending peaks in teenage years with increased impulsivity

-Cambridge’s peak age at 23 may be due to settling down with a partner and/or family who may guide behaviours + less wanting to commit crimes for sake of family

Question 31

What influences whether a crime is committed?

Answer 31

-Whether a crime is committed depends on cognitive processes - considering subjective benefits, costs and probabilities of different outcomes

-Immediate situational factors - material goods that could be stolen, likelihood and consequences of being caught

-Social factors - disapproval by parents or partner, encouragement and reinforcement from peers

-Stored behavioural repertoires/scripts (Huesmann, 1997) (CHECK WHAT THIS MEANS)

Question 32

ICAP:What are the consequences of offending in terms of AP?

Answer 32

The consequences of offending may lead to changes in LT AP and future decision making processes:
-Reinforcing consequences e.g., gaining material goods and peer approval
-Punishing consequences e.g., legal sanctions, parental approval

-If consequences involve labelling, the ability to achieve aims legally may be reduced, leading to increased AP (Farrington & Murray, 2014)

Question 33

ICAP: How are preventative factors including individual and social factors focused on?

Answer 33

-People get less impulsive and frustrated with age

-Life events such as marriage, steady employment, moving home - shifts in interactions from peers to partner and children

-Decreased offending opportunities (e.g., less drinking with male peers)

-Increased informal controls (e.g., family and work responsibilities)

-Changes decision making by reducing subjective rewards of offending - risk of getting caught higher (e.g., disapproval from partner, incarceration and losing family)

Question 34

What is a summary of the ICAP Theory?

Answer 34

-It identifies different factors that could influence future offending and antisocial behaviour both in the short and long term

-Findings of Cambridge study have been very influential in the development of programmes to try to reduce offending

Question 35

ICAP: What are some limitations to this theory?

Answer 35

-Research also shows that many people with these risk factors do not go on to offend (Webster et al., 2006)

-Focuses on risk factors related to family, parenting and peer groups - ignores wider issues such as the neighbourhood (Webster et al., 2006)

-Most of research focuses on working class males - explanations for females, those from middle and upper classes - rural areas who offend?

-Cambridge study doesn’t provide us much of an explanation for female offenders