Crime Flashcards
(24 cards)
Who is the key research for “turning to crime”
Raine
Sample of Raine
41 people charged with manslaughter or murder with a mean age of 34.3
What were the participants in raine pleading
NGRI (Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity)
Controls of Raine
Everyone from the group was compared to someone the same age and gender who had no accusations. Matched participants design
Procedure of Raine
Each participant was injected with a glucose tracer
They were monitored for 32 minutes while completing a continuous performance task which made them mention when the number 0 was on screen. They were given a PET scan after
Results of Raine
Murderers pleading NGRI had a significantly different pattern of brain metabolism. Reduced activity in the pre-frontal cortex
Less activity in the left side of the brain
Less activity in the corpus callosum
Conclusions of Raine
Possible that the differences in brain metabolism could make violence more likely
Cannot show that biology alone is the cause for actions however, and does not show that they are not responsible for their actions
What are the additional studies for “turning to crime”
Palmer and Hollin
Jahoda
Raine
Smoking during pregnancy
Palmer and Hollin info
126 male offenders aged 13-21 obtained through Young offenders institutions compared to 332 non offenders of the same age
Compared by two questionnaires about various moral views
Results : Male offenders were at a much lower level of moral reasoning tan the control group
Conclusions : Most offenders have a deficit in moral reasoning
Jahoda info
Boys born on wednesdays are believed to be more aggressive than boys born on mondays. Jahoda examined delinquency records for a 5 year period
wednesday boys committed 22% of crimes compared to 6.9 from monday.
Argued this is because of a self-fulfilling prophecy
Raine info
1795 children from Mauritius were studied. 100 were selected for an intervention which involved them having nutrition and physical stimulus.
The intervention group showed better focus and increased arousal at age 11 and were less hot tempered and showed lower conduct disorder score at age 17.
Follow up study gave 100 children omega 3 oils, which reduced aggression, delinquency and attention problems
Smoking during pregnancy info
Smoking during pregnancy can result in the foetus experiencing higher pre-natal exposure to testosterone. The length of a child’s ring finger can indicate this. Long ring fingers are associated with aggression, anti-social behaviour and a lack of empathy
What is fingerprint analysis
comparing fingerprints found at a crime scene with known fingerprints to identify a person
Who was the key research for fingerprint analysis
Hall and Player
Sample of Hall and Player
70 fingerprint experts from the met police. Mean experience of 11 years
Procedure of Hall and Player
A fingerprint was scanned and superimposed onto a £50 note. Each participant was given 1 of 14 different prints and a crime scene report that gave context of the crime. They had normal working conditions and a whole day to analyse the fingerprint. The experiment had a independent measures context with half the participants being given a high emotional report and the other half a low emotion. Participants had to fill in a form that said their identity and whether they thought the print was a match, not a match or insufficient to say.
Findings of Hall and Player
57/70 read the report and of them, 52% in the high emotional context said that it had affected their decision in some way.
Conclusion of Hall and Player
Even though they believed it did, emotional context did not affect the ability of fingerprint experts when analysing fingerprints
What isthe additional research for fingerprint analysis
Dror (2012)
Dror (2005)
LSU
Miller
Dror (2012) info
Bottom up approaches - examining the ridges and patterns to identify prints
Top down - using previous experience and knowledge to make an assumption about the identity
Top down approach is open to more mistakes due to a range of biases such as Overconfidence or Expectancy
Dror (2005) info
27 university students had to match pairs of prints to one another. Half were clear and half were not. They either had a low emotional context or a high emotional context and images were shown to reinforce this.
Participants shown high emotional contexts were more likely to find a match than low emotional cases. When subliminal messages were shown then that rose even more. This suggests that emotional context influences analysis
LSU info
1) Analyse the crime scene print on its own and decide if there is enough detail for comparison
2) Additional information is given in order of importance to the case.
3) Expert can then revisit and add to the analysis but cannot delete or make changes. Can say their confidence in a match at this point
Miller info
Miller looked at hair sample analysis. Experts were susceptible to need determination bias when matching hair. Miller suggested giving 6 samples to compare to in order to make them more careful when matching samples.
