Forensic psychology
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Forensic psychology - Marcador
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| What is offender profiling? | Tool used by police to solve crimes by narrowing the filed of enquiry and the list of likely suspects by compiling a profile of the offender, to hypothesise about thier probable characteristics. |
| What is the top-down approach ? | A USA approach established by the FBI behavioural science unit. Data from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually-motivated serial killers to build a template. Created 2 types of classifications that they would match people to: organised and disorganised |
| 4 characteristics of organised? | Plans crimes in advanced Deliberatly target's victims Little evidence left beind Above average IQ |
| 4 characteristics of disorganised? | Little evidence of planning Implusive acts Body often left in place Lower than average IQ |
| 4 steps of FBI proflie construction? | 1. Data assimilation 2. Ccrime scene classifications 3. Crime reconstruction 4. Profile generation |
| What is data assimilation? | Reviews the evidence (crime scene photos, pathology reports) |
| What is crime scene classifications? | Classifies offender typology as either organised or disorganised |
| What is crime reconstruction? | Hypotheses in terms of sequence of events |
| What is profile generation? | Hypotheses related to offender, eg. demographics, background, physical characteristics, behaviour |
| What is the bottom-up approach? | Aims to generate a picture of the offedner through systematic analysis of evidence. Does not have fixed typoloeis, the proflie is more data-driven and is more specific to each crime. More grounded in psychological theory. |
| Waht are the 4 steps of geographical profiling? | Crime mapping Centre of gravity Jeopardy surface Classification |
| What is crime mapping? | Using information to do with location of linked crime scenes and make infeneces about their likley home as serial offenders often restrict their work to geogrpahical areas they are familar with. |
| What is centre of gravity | Where the criminal opperate, which likley includes their base |
| What is jeopardy surface? | Educated guesses about where the offender is likley to strike next |
| What is classification? | Criminals are classed as either marauders (operate closely to their home base) or commuters (likely to travel a distance away from their base) |
| What is investigative psychology ? | Applying statistical procecures and psycholgoical theory to analyse crime scene evidence, to establish patterns of behavoiur that are likley to occur - helps to see if the series of offences are linked |
| What is interpersonal coherence? | The way the offender behaves at the scene of crime reflects thier everyday behaviour. Eg: rapists maintain maximum control. |
| What is forensic awareness? | Individuals who may have been interrogated by the police before may be more mindful for their acts. |
| A weakness of the top-down approach? | - The way the typology was developed. -The FBI came up with the categories disorganised and organised after an interview with 36 sexually motivated serial killers. These serial killers behaviour are quite extreme and rare as well as the sample size being small meaning that it is an unrepresentative sample. -The serial killers could have acted under a social-desirability bias and lie to make them more likelable as they were psychopaths, making it hard to generlise to 'normal' criminals -Lacks internal validity due to the data collection from a small smaple, lowering external validity as well. |
| A weakness of the top-down approach? | -Only applied to particular crimes -Makes hypotheses based on evidence left at the scene, this type of evidence best suits murders, home invasions and rapes, however, it struggles with crimes that has not a lot of evidence left behind. -Can be seen with petty theft and arson, not enough evidence to create a profile surrounding the criminal -The approach lacks generlisbaility as it is only applicable to specific crimes |
| A weakness of the top-down approach? | -Too simplisitc -Dahmer has a very specific type (Asian/Black teenage boys) which fits in more with the organised characteristics and Bundy lost a lot of control towards the end of his killing spree, fitting in more with the disorganised type. -Canter analysed 100 murder in the USA with reference to the organised/disorganised characteristic and have hfound a lot of evidence for organised but less of disorganised, undermining the classification system. -Approach is too reductionist as it oversimplifies a complex phenomena. |
| A strength of the bottom-up approach? | -Evidence fo the approach to offender profiling -For example, John Duffy’s case which was investigated by David Canter using geographical profiling and investigative psychology to gather specific and accurate detail surrounding Duffy’s profile which allowed for the subsequent arrest. -Used crime mapping to find Duffy's centre of gravity, which was Kilburn, and found used interpersonal coherance of the nature of the bondage of the rape scenes to understand that he was seperated and had fantacies of bondage. -Lack generlisability due to the case study, hard to apply to a wide range of peopel |
| A strength of the bottom-up approach? | -More scientific and objective than the top-down approach -Due to the evidence being more grounded and being more data-based, the approach doesn’t force offenders into specific categories which could lead to a reductionist approach to profile generation. -Investigative psychology now includes suspect interviewing and examination of material presented in court - supports use in judicial process -More holistic and allows for increase vality in comparison to the top-dwon approach, more evidence based |
| A weakness of the bottom-up? | -It has significant faliures -Rachel Nickell case study in which the true criminal was not found until 16 years after the crime as they had ruled him out originally due to him not fitting the height suggestions of the profile they generated. -Due to the crime only happening once, they were unable to gather a lot of information about the criminal through the usual techniques of crime mapping, meaning that they couldn’t establish any patterns that created personal data to help build a profile. Lead to inaccurate ideas of the criminall, causing the investigation to be drawn out -Bottom-up approach is based on the assumption of a criminla which leads to a less accurate picture, more suited to serial offenders |
| What was Lombroso's theory? | 1876 - suggested that criminals were 'genetic throwbacks' and primitve sub-species who were biologically differen to non-criminals They have innate tendency and lack evolutionary development, they were savage and can't fit into society. |
| What was the aim and method of Lombroso's research? | Aim: establish a biological link to explain offender profiling Method: examined the facial and cranial features of 383 dead criminals and 3839 living ones |
| What was the findings of Lombroso's research? | Criminals behaviour are biologically determined. Criminals are physically different, 40% of criminals would be accounted for by the atavistic form |
| Examples of atavistic characteristics? (5) | -Strong jaw -Dark skin -Insensitivty to pain (tattoos and pericings) -High cheekbones + sloping brow |
| What would murders have? (3) | Bloodshot eyes, curly hair and long ears |
| What would divants have? (3) | Glinting eyes, swollen/fleshy lips, projecting ears |
| Strength of the atavistic approach? | -Lombroso made significant contributions to the field of criminiology -Known as the ‘father of criminology’ as he was the first to scientifically look at offender profiling. -Less previous idea of ‘weak morals’ causing crime and more towards scientific approach, looking at genetic and evolutionary influences – removing blame from offender. -Despite the flaws, it signalled the start of a new scientific field of research: positivist criminology |
| A weakness of atavistic form? | -Critics draw attention to the racial undertones of Lombroso's work. -Outlined several atavistic forms of a criminal can be seen to be racist stereotypes at the time, which were mainly associated of an African descent. This can be seen through the features such as: dark skin, thick lips, curly hair which reflects racism within Italy at the time he was working. -Described atavistic form as ‘uncivilised, primitive + savage’ - could support eugenics philosophy that were prominent at the time. -May have been unintentional on Lombroso's part, but it has ethical implications that have overshadowed the approach |
| A weakness of the atavistic form? | -Issues with methodology -Lombroso did not compare sample to non-criminal control group - if he had, there may not have been so many different features. Also likely to have non-criminals with an atavistic form. It is unclear as to whether facial characters cause offedngin or vice versa. -High cheekbones/strong jaw could have been due to poor diet/povery which again are confounding variables -Hard to establish cause and effect relationship between atavistic form and criminals due this data - low internal validity |
| What did Lange (1930) find? | 13 MZ twins and 17 DZ twins, where one of the had been to prison. 10/13 MZ twin pairs had both been to prison, compared to 2/17 DZ twins. |
| What did Christiansen (1977) find? | Studied prison records and found a 33% concordance rate for MZ twins and 12% for DZ twins - but because the MZ genes aren’t 100%, it shows that it isn’t 100% genetic. |
| What are the 2 candinate genes? | Tiihonen et al (2014) after analysis of 900 offenders: MAOA gene and CDH13 gene Found that certain variations of both made individuals 13X more likley to have a history of violent disorders |
| What is the MAOA gene? | Controls serotonin and dopamine and is linked to aggressive behaviour |
| What is the CDH13 gene? | Linked to substance abuse and ADHD |
| What is the antisocial personality disorder? | Lack of empathy, reduced emotional responses and implusive/irresponsible behaviour |
| What did Raine et al find? | Found a 11% reduction in volume of grey matter in the prefrontal cortex of people with APD - the region of the brain the regulates emotions |
| What did Keysers et al find? | Found that mirror neurons (controls empathy) might not always be turned on in people with APD. Criminals only emphasised when asked to show an empathy reaction. Suggests they can ‘switch on/off’ empathy. |
| A strength of the genetic and neural explantion? | -Mixed research evidence from Mednick et al's resarch into 13,000 Danish approahces -Analysis of criminal behaviour showed that when both the child's adopted and biological apretns have criminal convitions, 24.5% of the adopted children did too. -Only 20% when just their biological parents had covictions and 13% when neither their adopted or biological parents had committed crimes -This supports the diathesis-stress model, as it is clear there is a predisposition to crime as well the environment which the child is surrounded in. |
| A weakness of the genetic and neural approach? | -Methodological issues with twin studies used to support the genetic explanation of offending -Lange's study into twins and criminality had one major flaw - he didn't know if the twins he was studing were identical, he guessed! -Twin studies are unable to serpate genetics from environement as they are often brought up together in the same family and school envrionment -Lowers internal validity, hard to establish cause and effect relationship with genetics and criminality due to confounding variables |
| A weakness of genetic and neural explanation? | -Criminality is complex and biological explanations can inappropriate or overly simplistic. -Correlation-causation issue with the neural correlates explanation: did APD cause the biological deficit or vice versa? -Don’t know that criminality has a biological cause. Overly reductionist approach – ignores higher level factors. -Unlikely to be a ‘gene’ that causes criminality but can cause attitude changes and responses to social norms. Too reductionsit in their approach. |
| How did Eysenck believe that personality could be measured by? | Could be measured by EPI (Eysenck personality inventory) - measues ppts on extraversion/introversion and neuroticism/stability scales. Later measured psychotisim |
| What is the criminal personality type? | Neurotic-extravert: -Extraverts constantly seek exctiement, stimuluation and risk-taking behaviours, unlikely ot learn from thier mistakes -Neurotic people tend be nervous, jumpy and difficult to predict due instability |
| What is the score on psychoticism? | Believed they would score highly on psychoticism - made them unemotional and prone to aggression |
| What was the biological bias that Eysenck believed in? | -Personality traits have a biological origin, based on the nervous system that they haev -Extraverts have an underactive nervous system - makes them seek excitment, stimulation and risk. Don't condition easily |
| What is the sociological bias? | The role of socialiation. Children taught through socialisation process how delay gratification and become more socially-oriented. |
| What did Eyneck belive about socilisation with criminals | ENPs were harder to condition, they have not learned the skills in chilhood - more developmentally immature, selfish and more likley to act antisocially in their behaviour |
| A strength of Eysenck's personality ? | -Wealth of empirical evidence through research he conducted to support ideas -Comapred 2070 prisoners to 2422 controls on his EPI, found that across all age groups prisoners were higher in measures of E, N and P. -However, more recent meta-analysis by Farrington found that offenders always scored highly on the P scale, but not also on E or N -Modern EEG research used to measure cortical arousal levels haev also found no significant differneces between E and I peopel, challenging hte physiological bias |
| A weakness of Eysenck? | -The EPI was a self-report questionnaire -Subject to social desirablity bias as people want to appear better. Closed questions also meant that ppts can't expand on their answers, making people choose soemthing different to their response, doesn't best represent their response -As well as this, personalities change all the time, for example: in differnt setting like in school or with your firedn, parts of your personality might change therefore makes the data unreliable -Furthermore, modern research suggests 5 new factors: open to experience, conscientiousness, extraveriosn, agreeableness and neuroticism (OCEAN) within personality which suggest that Eysenck's view was reductionist |
| A weakness of Eysenck? | -Contradictory evidence from Barlon and Holanchack -Found that Hispanic and African-American offenders in a maximum security priosn in New York wre found to be less extraverted than a group of non-offdners when they were split into 6 groups depending on their offending hisotry and nature of their offence -Findings were likely to occure due the systematic racism that coculd be seen in prisons at the time, meaning tha tthses priosners were less likley to be extraverted in order to keep themselves out of trouble -Therefore, Eysenck's study of majority white, British offenders means that there is imposed etic seeing within the study as it is unable to be applied to multiple different samples and cultures. |
| What does the differential association theory propose? | Individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques, and motivations for criminal behaviour through association and interaction with different people (hence, differential association) |
| What did Sutherland suggest? | Criminal behaviour was acquired in the same way as other behaviour thorugh the process of learnign. Occurs through interactions with significant others that a child associates with, particularly family and peer groups. |
| What did Sutherland say were the 2 main factors? | Pro-criminal attitudes Learning criminal acts |
| What did Sutherland suggest about pro-criminal attitudes? | -Socialise with others, esposed to thier values and attitudes of the law -Majority of these are negative and more-criminal than the more likley the individual will offend -Suggests that ti should be possible to mathematically predict how likely it is that an individual will commit crimes, based on the frequency/intensity/duration of our exposure to deviant norms and values |
| What did Sutherland suggest about learning criminal acts? | -Criminals would need to learn particular techniques for committing crimes, such as disabling alamrs -Inside prison, inmates can learn techniques from other, more experienced criminlas - can happen through direct insturction or observational learning/imitation -Accounts for why so many convict released from prison go onto reoffend |
| What does Sutherland's theory say about class? | Theory is not exclusive to people who are deprived or undeducated, middle-class people can be exposed to behaviours such as tax or insurance fraud or stealing (white-collar crimes) |
| A strength of the differential association theory? | -Accounts for crime in all sectors of society -Sutherland states that burglary would be more common in working-class communites, but also acknowelges the prevalance of white-collar crime in more affluent areas, too -Also move away from previous biological ideals like Lombroso atavistic form which could have dangerous implications and fuel eugenics arguments. -Instead of eugenics philosophy, the solution to Sutherland's ideas is more ethially soudnd like supporting working class areas with access to resources. |
| A strength of differential association theory? | -Supporting research from Farrington -Longitudinal study of ofeedning and antisocial behavviour in 411 males from the ages of 8-50 in a working-class deprived area in south London which looked at recorded convictions and self-reported offending -Found that 41% were convicted at least once between the ages of 10-50 and made 'risk factors' of childhood in the ages of 8-10 which could cause later offending. This included: family ciminality, daring or risk-taking, low school attainment, poverty, and poor parenting -Therefore, Sutherland's ideas have empirical evidence and external validity |
| A weakness about Suntherland's theory? | -Can lead to negative stereotyping due to the theory looking more at the nururde side of the debate -States people who grew up in improverished areas are more likely to commit crimes, this could lead to negative and prejudice stereotypes about people within this area -This has ethical implications which are dangerous as it could lead to fewer job opportunities and class discimination for people who live in these areas. -Form of environmentla determinism and ignores the role of free will which could allow for people to not be involved within crime even if they live in these impoverished areas. |
| What is the first level? | Pre-conventional morality |
| What is stage 1 and stage 2 of level 1? | Stage 1: Punishment orientation, rules are obeyed to avoid punishment Stage 2: Instrumental orientation or personal gain, Rules are obeyed for personal gain |
| What is level 2? | Conventional morality? |
| What is stage 3 and 4 in level 2? | Stage 3: ‘Good boy’ or ‘Good girl’ orientation. Rules are obeyed for approval Stage 4: Maintenance of social order. Rules are obeyed to maintain the social order/norms |
| What is level 3? | Post-conventional morality |
| What is stage 5 and 6 in level 3? | Stage 5: Morality of contract and individual rights. Rules are obeyed if they are impartial democratic rules are challenged if they infringe on the rights of others Stage 6: Morality of conscience. The individual establishes his or her own rules in accordance with a personal set of ethical principles. |
| Where are criminal more likely to be in Kohlberg's model? | Pre-conventional level - less mature, commit crimes to gain reward and avoid punishment People at a higher level are more sympathetic and non-violent |
| What is cognitive distortions? | Errors or biases in people’s processing that are characterised by faulty thinking - criminals use it interpret other people and justify their behaviour |
| What is hostile attribution bias? | Misinterpreting the actions of other people, often assuming that they are being confrontational when they are not - misread non-aggressive cue, may trigger a violent response |
| Where does hostile attribution bias come from? (research support) | Childhood - Dodge and Frame, showed a video of 'ambiguous provocation), children that were 'aggressive' or 'rejected' more likely to interpret the behaviour as hostile. |
| What is minimalisation? | Attempting to deny or downplay the seriousness of an offence - May apply a euphemistic label, doing a job |
| When is minimalisation more common? | People that have committed sexual offences - Barbaree - 40% rapists minised the harm and 54% denied committing any offence. Pollock and Hashmall, 35% of child molestors said their crime was non-sexual and 36% said that the child consented. |
| What is a strength of the cognitive explanation of offending? | -Proven beneficial in the treatment of criminal behaviour -CBT is a dominant approach in treating sex offenders, establishes a less disorderted view of thier action by addressing irrational thoughts of justification -Studies show that was a reduction of denial and minimasiation therapy has reduced the risk of recidivism. -Key feature of anger management therapy - accepting responsiblity for crimes, practicial application to real life, increase ecological validity. |
| A weakness of Kohlberg's model? | -Doesn't account for some important individual dfferences -Those committing crimes for finanical gain more likely to be at the pre-conventional level. Associated with crimes where they think they can get awway with it -Impulsive crimes like assualt tend to not have reasoning at all. Langdon suggests intelligence is a better predictor for crime than moral reasoning. Often people with low intelligence are much more likely to commit crimes -Question the validity of the stage model and wider generlisability as well as this, the stage model is reductionist |
| A weakness of the cognitive approach to criminality? | -It is descriptive, not explanatory -Cognitive approach is really good at describing what happens with the criminal mind - but struggles to explain why or how these thoughts initally come about -Can be useful to predict reoffending - but it doesn't offer insight into why the crime was committed in the first play -Need to consider other approach to actually explain the origin of the crime seeing as it is a reductionist outlook that is only a part explanation |
| Where does the morals come from? | From the child's same-sex parents (Oedipus model - during the Phallic stage), they indentify with the father and try to model thier behaviour |
| What is a weak superego? | The same seex parent is absent during the phallic stage - child cannot internalise a fully-formed superego bc there is no opportunity for idenitification. This would make immoral or criminal behaviour more likely |
| What is a deviant superego? | The superego that the child internalises has immoral or deviant values, leads to offending behaviour. Eg: boy raised on a criminal means they are not likely to associate guilt with wrongdoing |
| What is a over-harsh superego? | An overlay-harsh superego can cause anxiety and cripple someone with guilt. This may (unconsciously) drive an individual to perform criminal acts in order to satisfy the superego's overwhelming need for punishment. |
| What is a weakness of the psychodynamic theory? | -Lack face validity -According to the weak superego, all children with absent same-sex parents are more likley to be criminals. This is not the case as same-sex families and single-parent families are not more likely to raise criminals, there is statisical link showing that this socially sensitive towards these groups, -Accordining to the over-harsh superego theory, parents who are strict raise obedient and guilt-ridden children. This can be seen to be not the casen, rather they are rebellious and sneaky towards their parents, not guilty. -Accordining to the deivant superego theory, parents who are criminals will cause their children to internalise, rather a better explaning is the SLT where children look up to thier parents in their environment |
| A weakness of the superego theory ? | -This can be seen to be gender biased -Freud stated that boys had a subconscious drive to have sex with their mum, however, they didn't act on it due to the fear being castrated by their fathers, causing to the identify with them instead. -This can be seen to be less of a problem for the girls seeing as there is nothing to castrate, meaning that there there is not castration-anxiety to drive to internalised the superego, meaning they have a weaker superego. This means that they are more likely to commit crimes -This can be seen to support the internal statistic of the gender splits in the prison, for example, in the UK it can be seen to 20x more men in prison than women. |
| How does the bowlby's maternal deprivation theory explain criminality? | The idea that maternal deprivation causes affectionless psychopathy. Lack of guilt and empathy ofr others, bond needs to be established within the first few years as it is unique and superior, mother needs to act as a template and a role model. |
| What did Bowlby's study find? | Over 1/2 had been seperated from mothers in for > months in the first 5 years compared to 4% fo controls 32% showed affectionless psychopathy comapred to 0% of the control 86% of affectionless psychopaths had experienced long maternal separation before years old, in residential homes or in hospital without family visits. |
| A weakness of the maternal deprivation theory? | -Is correlational -Issues with correlational research i that there is no IV can be manipualted, making it hard to establish a proper cause and effect relationhsips which means that there are possible extraneous varibles that may have differed the results -There are likekly to be a mediating factors between the relationship between maternal deprivation and criminal behaviour, eg: lack of funds due to lack of income and poverty is a stronger indictor of crime -It can be said that the children experienced privation instead of deprivation as the bond was never secure/present within the first place, casting doubt onto the maternal deprivation theory |
| A weakness of the maternal deprivation theory ? | -Socially sensitive -Bowlby states that if the mother is no present within the first 2 sensitive years of a child's life, this will not allow them to form a monotropic bond with their mother. Without this, it causes problmes for the rest of the child's life, placing sole blame on the mother. -It can be said that the theory lacks temporal validity seeing as the results cannot be applied to society nowadays, this can be by more mother going to work earlier and different types of families (same-sex families and single-fathers) and ther children are fine -Therefore, could cause ethical implications seeing as the theory negatively impact working class mothers from receiving childcare if the child is under 5 years old as well as being used against men and gender roles. |
| What is custodial sentencing? | Decision made by a court that ounishment for a crime should involve time incarcerated in priosn or some other closed insitution |
| What are the four aims of prison? | Deterrence, incapacitiation, retribution, rehabilitation |
| What is deterrence? | Unpleasent prison experience to put off the individual from engaging in offendering behaviour. Based off the behaviourist approach: vicarious punishment, bed contions and aggressive people |
| What is incapacitation? | Offender is taken out of society to prevent them from reoffending as a means of protecting the public, depends on the severity of the offence and the nature of the offender |
| What is retribution? | Society is enacting revenge for the offecne by making the offender suffer - the level of suffering should be proportionate ot the seriouness of the offence |
| What is rehabilitation? | The main purpose of prison is reform them. Develop opportunities to develop skills and training or to access treatment programes. Allows for them to be better adjusted and ready to take their place back in society |
| What are the consequences of prison? | Prisonisation, Isolation, institutionalisation |
| What is prisonisation? | The prisoners create codes among themselves and behaviour that they have to follow, encourging things like violence nad gang behaviour. Considered unacceptable in the outside world but encouraged and rewarded in prison. |
| What is isolation ? | Rates of depression, suicide and self-harm increase in prison as the risk increases. Stress of the experience which increases the risk of developing psychological disorders after released. |
| What is institutionalisation ? | There is a strict routine within prison, when they are released, the sense of freedom can be hard to deal with, hard to function properly |
| What is a strength of custodial sentencing? | -Provides prisoners with a chance for training and treatment -The vera institute of Justice claims that offenders who take part in colledge education programmes in prison are 43% less likely to reoffend following release -Significant because it means that training programmes can improve a prions' ability to rehabilitate prisoners as well as allowing prisoners to gain employment upon release, lowering recidivism rates -Suggests that prison may be a worthwile experience assuming offenders are able to access these programmes |
| Weakness of custodial sentencing? | -Negative psychological effects on prisoners -Bartol suggested that imprisonment can be 'brutal demeaning and generally devastating' for inmates. Accoridng to the ministry of justice, 119 people died by suicide, 25% of women and 15% of men experience psychosis (hallucinations) in prison -Significant because this statistic is equivilant to 9 times the size of suicide rates of the general population. Supports that oppressive prison regimes may be detrimental to the health of inmates, impacting the ability to rehabilitate inmates -Psychosis makes it harder for convicts to adjust to the outside world once they are released, making them reoffend. |
| Weakness of custodial sentencing? | -Doesn't include the number of inmates experiencing mental health problems before they were incarcerated. -Significnat because many of those convicted may have pre-exisiting psychological and emotional difficulties at the time they were convicted -Prisoners may be importing their own pre-exisiting conditions with them into the prison, increasing the likelihood of the suicide rates showing that prison, therefore, prison is not causing psychosis as it is a predisposition. -Suggesting that there may be confounding variables that links prisons and negative psychological. |