Forensic Psychology Flashcards
how to measure crime
- Official statistics
- Victim statistics
- Offender statistics
outline top-down profiling
- Profiling inputs
- Decision process
- Crime assessment
- Criminal profile
- Crime assessment
- Apprehension
evaluate top-down profiling
- Use, 184 police officers, 82% said it was operationally useful and 90% said they would use it again as it opens up new areas of inquiry
- Flawed- original data to distinguish is dis/organised was from 36 of the most dangerous and sexually motivated killers, liars, and highly manipulative, they are also very rare
- Harm- process is not based on scientific fact, just intuition, also ambiguous descriptions can fit many situations
- Accuracy- Alison, gave officers either a real profile or fake, over 50% of the officers rated the profiles as accurate, even though half were fake
- Turvey-
outline the bottom up approach
-Investigative psychology- David Canter
1. Interpersonal coherence- people are consistent with their behaviour so their crimes reflect tier normal activities.
2. Forensic awareness- aware of police techniques, rapists who were burglars before won’t leave finger prints
3. Small space analysis- statistical analysis which creates patterns of behaviour, contains three themes;
.Instrumetnal opportunist, instrumental cognitive and expressive impulsive
-Geographical profiling
-Canter- marauders nad commuters
-Rossmos jeopardy surface
evaluate the bottom approach
- Scientific- statistical techniques and computer analysis, however, only as good as what you put into it. The data is only data from criminals who have been caught, tells us little about unsolved crimes
- Use- Canters the first attempt was impressive, the Railway Rapist. 75% of officers said it was useful nut only 3% said it helped find the killer
- Circle theory- studied 45 sexual assaults, 91% were classed marauders, so do we even need this classification
- Geographical profiling- can be used to prioritise house searches, but it’s limited to spatial behaviour rather than personality characteristics, Rossmo was even dismissed
- Overall- profiling can’t actually identify an offender, it only assists the police. Can throw of the investigation
outline the historical bio approach to offending
Cesare Lombroso
- Atavistic from theory- characteristics of lower primates e.g. strong jaw, high cheekbones, wide nose, extra nipples etc.
- He studied 383 criminals, 21% had one atavistic trait, 43% had at least five.
- He later noted that environment will also be a factor
- 3 types, born criminal (atavistic), insane criminal (mental illness), and criminaloids (general class who are predisposed to criminal tendencies
- Ernst Kretchmer- Somatypes;
1. Leptosome - tall thin- petty thieve
2. Atheltic- tall muscular- violent crimes
3. Pyknic- short fat- deception
4. Dysplastic- mixed- crimes against morality
evaluate the historical bio approach to offending
- Lombroso- though his methods are now criticised, he is still thought of as the founder of modern criminology as he brought science to crime. Realised the evidence approach was required
- Link between personality type and criminality- Lombroso’s proposal has not gone away, just been developed, into things like Eysenck’s theory. His theory is basically the theory of genetics, just in naive words
- Unreliable methods- lack of controls, he studied prisoners but didn’t pay attention to non-prisoners. Goring did that and found no difference other than height
- Racist- at this time racism was high
- Gender bias- typical 19th-century views, women were less evolved
outline the biological approach for offending, genetics and neural
Genetics
-Twin studies- Raine found 52% concordance rate for MZ twins for delinquent behaviour and 21% for DZ twins
-Genes- Brunner found a family with high violence had low levels of monoamine oxidase, suggesting a deficiency in this cause violence. A study of 900 offenders found low MAOA and low Cadherin 13
-Diathesis-stress- epigenetics suggest gene expression can be caused and influenced by environmental factors. A combination of predisposition and life experiences can cause delinquent behaviour
Neural
-Regions of the brain- Raine found violent psychopaths have reduced functioning in the prefrontal cortex causing impulsiveness
-Limbic system- linked to motivation, Raine found murderers who were found to be insane had abnormal asymmetries in the limbic system
-Neurotransmitters- low serotonin can cause impulsiveness. Noradrenaline, high levels= fight/flight and low levels= cant percieve threats
evaluate the biological approach for offending, genetics and neural
- Adoption studies- adopted child with a bio criminal parent was 50% more likely to have a criminal record by 18. 14,000 adoptees, 15% of those adopted by criminals went on to be criminals but 20% of those adopted with a bio criminal parent
- Very deterministic- if we have a defective gene we are 13 times more likely to offend, but everyone
- RWA- research into neural abnormalities lead to improved treatment e.g. prisons could use foods with high serotonin to lower aggression
- Cause and effect- there may be intervening factors, people in violent homes may have had a risk of head injuries and therefore abnormalities occurred, but the violence was already present
- A lot of research into aggression is carried out on animals, could don’t have crime, potentially undermines the research’s relevance. Also, there is never 100%
outline eysecks personality theory
- Extraversion- positive and outgoing but may get bored easily. Has to do with arousal, and under aroused person may want/need more stimulation to increase cortical arousal
- Neuroticism- tendency to experience negative emotions, involved in the sympathetic nervous system- fight/flight.
- Psychoticism- egocentric, impulsive, lacks empathy, related to high levels of testosterone
- Eysenks said it had a bio basis- 67% variance
- 68% of people fall within 1 standard deviation from the mean
- Link to criminal behaviour- suggests we are born with these traits, but the environment is the key factor that determines the development of criminal tendencies.
- Extraverts seek arousal, so may want dangerous feelings, neurotics will overreact to a threat, psychotics are aggressive
evaluate eysencks personality theory
-Genetic basis- twin studies, Zuckerman fond a +.52 correlation for identical twins on neuroticism and 0.24 for non-identical. Showing a large genetic component.
Found similar results for extroverts and psychoticism. However not high enough, Eysnecks said a +.50 correlation means about 40% of the variance is due to genes, however, the identical twins one may have been inflated twins get treated more similar
-Personality may not be consistent- this theory suggests a person who is anxious, is anxious all the time. However, there are situational variables. Mischel, asked family, friends and strangers to rate 63 students in a variety of situations and found almost no correlation between traits displayed.
-My not be reliable- score depends on the person self-report on the EPQ. Maybe affected by social desirability, can only answer yes or no, they want to lean on the socially desirable one. This is countered by the lie scale
-Link between personality and criminal- research comparing crims and non-crims and their personalities. Foundextraversion ad psychoticism were good predictors of delinquency. However, all ps were students and their friends. Another study found only a small amount of male offenders had high scores of all three
outline the cognitive approach for offending
–Cognitive distributions- irrational thinking where reality is perceived incorrectly.
Hostile attribution bias- always thinking the worst, linked to greater levels of aggression
Minimalisation- underexaggerates a situation, will feel less guilty. e.g. stealing from a wealthy family is okay
–Levels of moral reasoning- Kohlberg interviewed boys and men about their reasons for moral decisions. He then developed a stage model- each stage represents a more advanced form of moral understanding. 3 stages, pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional. Each one split into 2.
Kohlberg suggests 10% of adults reach the post-conventional, so conventional is the most common.
Most criminals are at the pre-conventional, think crime is justified if they can get rewards
evaluate the cognitive approach for offending
- Schoenberg- showed emotionally ambiguous faces to 55 violent offenders, the offenders were more likely to interpret the faces that had any level of anger as aggressive. Shows misinterpretations and hostile attribution bias
- Kennedy and Grubin- found sex offenders often downplay their behaviour in the crime. Put the blame on external sources or even deny it happened. Strength of minimalism
- RWA- understanding of cognitive distortions can’t be used to identify a criminal but it can be used in treatment. Heller worked with disadvantaged young men and used CBT to reduce judgment and decision-making errors. Ps attended 13, one hour long sessions and had a 44% reduction in arrests
- Limitations- Kohlberg’s theory is based almost entirely on male offender and ps.
- Research support for levels of moral reasoning- Kohlberg reported that the sequence was universal, though post-c was less common is rural areas. Offending Motivation Questionaire found 38% of crimes did not think of the consequences, 36% thought they would be caught
differential association
-Developed by Sutherland- explained by social learning
“differential association” people differ in the frequency with how much they associate with others who have more or less favourable views towards crime
- What is learned- a child learns attitudes towards crime ie if it’s desirable or not? A potential criminal may come from a pro-crime household. Child learns what crimes are favourable and learn methods
- Who is it learned from- intimate people and personal groups? Also by a wider nieghbourhood
- How is it learned- frequency, leg=nght of time and personal meaning will determine the degree of influence. Includes direct and indirect conditioning. Direct reinforcement means they are more likely to do that agian and indirect mean vicarious reinforcment
evaluate the differential association
- RWA-changed people opinions about criminals and their origins. Learning environments can be changed or improved when genes can’t.
- Supporting evidence- criminality seems to run in families. Found if there is a father with a criminal past- 40% of their sons had committed a crime compared to only 13% of sons without a criminal father, although this is also evidence of bio approach. Found 68% marijuana use is caused by peer imitation
- Methodological issues- the data is correlational, can’t establish cause and effect. E.g we could say offenders actually seek each other out, can’t disentangle
- Can’t account for all crimes- some say this theory only applies to smaller crimes rather than serious or violent crimes. However, there is a higher amount of smaller crimes, 2014=500 homicides and 400,000 burglaries
