Forensic Psychology Flashcards

Question

Role of Socialisation - 5 Points

Answer 1

- Personality is linked to offending behaviour through socialisation processes - Saw offending behaviour as developmentally immature, in that it is selfish and concerned with immediate gratification - Process of socialisation is one in which children are taught to become able to delay gratification and more socially orientated - Believed that people with high extraversion and neuroticism scores had nervous systems that made them difficult to condition - As a result, they are less likely to learn anxiety responses to antisocial impulses and would be more likely to act antisocially in situations where the opportunity presented itself

Answer 2

- Developed the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), which is a form of psychological test that locates respondents along the three dimensions to determine their personality type - Very important aspect of this theory, as it enabled him to conduct research relating personality variables to other behaviours

Answer 3

- Eysenck and Eysenck - compared 2,070 prisoner's scores on the EPQ with 2,422 controls - Prisoners recorded higher average scores on measures of extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism than controls - Agrees with predictions of the theory, that offenders rate higher than average across the three dimensions - CC: Farrington et al - conducted a meta-analysis of relevant studies, and reported that offenders tended to score high on measures of psychoticism, but not for extraversion and neuroticism - Küsser - inconsistent evidence of differences between introverts and extraverts using EEG measures - Casts doubt on the physiological basis of Eysenck's theory - Means some of the central assumptions of the criminal personality have been challenged

Answer 4

- Idea that all offending behaviour can be explained by personality traits alone is a limitation - Moffitt - drew a distinction between offending behaviour that only occurs in adolescence (adolescence limited) and offending behaviour that continues into adulthood (life - course - persistent) - Argued that personality traits alone were a poor predictor of how long offending behaviour would go on for, in the sense of whether someone is likely to become a 'career offender' - Considered persistence in offending behaviour to be the result of a reciprocal process between individual personality traits and environmental reactions to those traits - Presents a more complex picture than Eysenck suggested, and that the course of offending behaviour is determined by an interaction between personality and the environment

Answer 5

- Criminal personality may vary according to culture - Bartol and Holanchock - studied Hispanic and African-American offenders in a maximum security prison in New York - Researchers divided these offenders into 6 groups based on their offending history and the nature of their offences - Found that all 6 groups were less extravert than a non-offender control group, whereas this theory would expect them to be more extravert - Suggested that this was because the sample was a very different cultural group than was investigated by Eysenck - Casts doubt over how far the criminal personality can be generalised, and suggests it may be a culturally relative concept

Answer 6

- This theory offers a way to measure personality through the use of a psychological test - Means we can see how the criminal personality differs from the rest of the population across different dimensions - Critics have suggested that personal type may not be reducible to a score in this way - The suggestion is that personality, if it does exist, is too complex and dynamic to be quantified

Answer 7

- Top-down approach - Bottom-up approach

Answer 8

A behavioural and analytical tool that is intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown offenders

Answer 9

Profiles start with a pre-established typology and work down to lower levels, in order assign offenders to one of two categories, based on witness accounts and evidence from the crime scene

Answer 10

An offender who shows evidence of planning, targets a specific victim, and tends to be socially and sexually component, with higher than average intelligence.

Answer 11

An offender who shows little evidence of planning, leaves clues, and tends to be socially and sexually incompetent, with a lower than average intelligence

Answer 12

- Developed by the FBI's Behavioural Sciences Unit in the 1970s, who drew upon data gathered from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated murderers - Concluded that the data could be categorised into organised or disorganised crimes - Each category has certain characteristics which meant that future crime scene data could match one of the categories, and suggest other likely characteristics - Could then be used to identify the offender or predict their next moves - Profilers who use this methods will collect data about a murderer, and then decide on the category the data best fits

Answer 13

- Show evidence of having planned the crime in advance - Victim is deliberately targeted, which suggests that the offender has a preferred type of victim they seek out - Maintains a high degree of control during the crime, and may operate with more precision - Little evidence or clues left behind at the scene - Tend to be of above average intelligence, in a skilled and professional occupation, and are socially and sexually competent - Usually married and may have children

Answer 14

- Show little evidence of planning, suggesting they may be spontaneous attacks - Crime scene tends to reflect the impulsive nature of the attack - the body is usually still at the scene, and the offender appears to have had very little control - Tend to have lower than average intelligence - Unskilled work or unemployed - History of sexual dysfunction and failed relationships - Tend to live alone, and often relatively close to where the offence took place

Answer 15

- Average to high intelligence - Plans offences - Weapon is usually hidden - Body is usually transported from the scene - Careful to cover tracks and leaves few or no clues - Attempts to control victim - Sexually competent - Angry or depressed at the time of the murder - Socially competent - Uses restraints on victims - Victim is specially targeted - Show self-control at scene - Victim is likely to be a stranger - Skilled occupation - Married or cohabitating - Likely to follow the story in the media

Answer 16

- Below average intelligence - Unskilled occupation or unemployed - May perform sexual acts post-mortem - Offender is messy, and makes no effort to conceal evidence so is likely to leave more clues - First or last born - Frightened and confused at time of murder - Socially incompetent - Minimal use of restraints - Leaves body on display - Victim is likely to be random - Often familiar with the crime scene - Unplanned and haphazard - More likely to be known to the victim - Sexual problems in relation to the mother and/or abuse - Lives alone

Answer 17

- Proposed by Jackson and Bekerian - Four main stages - Data assimilation - profiler reviews the evidence, such as crime scene photos, pathology reports, witness reports, etc - Crime scene classification - either organised or disorganised - Crime reconstruction - hypotheses in terms of the sequence of events, victim behaviour, etc - Profile generation - hypotheses related to the likely offender, such as demographic background, physical characteristics, behaviour, etc

Answer 18

- Canter et al - conducted an analysis of 100 US murders, each committed by a different serial killer - Smallest space analysis was used to assess the co-occurrence of 39 aspects of serial murders, and included whether there was torture or restraint, whether there was an attempt to conceal the body, the form of murder weapon used, and cause of death - Revealed that there does seem to be a subset of features of many serial killings, which matched the FBI's typology for organised offenders - Suggests that a key component of this approach to offender profiling has some validity

Answer 19

A statistical technique that identifies correlations across different samples of behaviour

Answer 20

- Many studies suggest the organised and disorganised types are not mutually exclusive - Variety of combinations that occur at any given murder scene - Godwin - argues that it is difficult to classify killers as one type or another - A killer may have multiple contrasting characteristics, such as high intelligence and sexual competence, but commits a spontaneous murder and leaves the body at the scene - Suggests that the organised - disorganised typology is probably more of a spectrum

Answer 21

- Meketa - reports that top-down profiling has been applied to burglary, leading to an 85% rise in solved cases on 3 US states - Retains the organised - disorganised distinction, but adds 2 new categories - interpersonal and opportunistic - Interpersonal - offender usually knows their victim and steals something of significance - Opportunistic - generally an inexperienced young offender - Suggests that top-down profiling has wider applications than was originally assumed

Answer 22

- Of the 36 murderers interviewed, 25 were serial killers and 11 were single or double murderers - At the end of the interview process, 24 were classified as organised and 12 were classified as disorganised - Canter et al - argued that the sample was poor, as the agents did not select a random or large enough sample to include different kinds of offenders - No standard set of questions, so each interview as different and not really comparable - Suggests this type of profiling does not have a strong scientific basis

Answer 23

- Based on the principle of behavioural consistency, where serial offenders have characteristic 'modus operandi' - These should be seen across all their crime scenes, which should allow the profiler to link different crime scenes together, making the offender easier to catch - Situationist psychologists, such as Mischel, argue that people's behaviour is more driven by the situation they are in, than their criminal 'personality' - Behavioural patterns seen at a crime scene may tell us little about how the individual behaves in everyday life

Answer 24

Profilers work up from evidence collected from the crime scene to develop hypotheses about the likely characteristics, motivations, and social background of the offender

Answer 25

Bottom-down

Answer 26

A from of bottom-up profiling that matches details from the crime sene with statistical analysis of typical offender behaviour patterns, based on psychological theory

Answer 27

A form of bottom-up profiling based on the principle of spatial consistency, where an offender's operational base and possible future offences are revealed by the geographical location of their previous crimes

Answer 28

- Aim is generate a picture of an offender, such as their likely characteristics, routine behaviour, and social background, through systematic analysis of evidence at the crime scene - Does not begin with a fixed typology - Profile is data driven, and emerges as the investigator engages in deeper and more rigorous scrutiny of the details of the offence - Much more grounded in psychological theory than the top-down approach

Answer 29

- Investigative psychology - Geographical profiling

Answer 30

- Aim is to establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur or co-exist across crime scenes, in order to develop a statistical database, which can then establish a baseline for comparison - Specific details of an offence or related offences can then be matched against this database to reveal important details about the offender, their personal history, family background, etc - May also determine whether a series of offences are linked and are likely to have been committed by the same person - 3 main variables - interpersonal coherence, significance of time and place, and forensic awareness

Answer 31

- The way an offender behaves at the scene and interacts with the victim, which may reflect their behaviour in everyday situations - Dywer - some rapists want to maintain maximum control and humiliate their victims, whilst some are more apologetic, which could give the police some insight into how the offender relates to women more generally

Answer 32

May indicate where the offender lives or works

Answer 33

- Describes these individuals who have been the subject of police interrogation before - Their behaviour might reveal how mindful they are of 'covering their tracks'

Answer 34

- Uses information about the location of linked crime scenes to make inferences about the likely home or operational base of an offender - Known as 'crime mapping' and is based on the principle of spatial consistency - Can be used alongside investigative psychology to create hypotheses about how the offender is thinking and their modus operandi - The assumption is that serial offenders will restrict themselves to geographical areas they are familiar with - By understanding the spatial pattern of their behaviours, it provides investigators with a 'centre of gravity', which is likely to include the offender's base that is often in the middle of the spatial pattern - Basis of Canter's 'circle theory'

Answer 35

People commit crimes within a limited geographical space

Answer 36

- Proposed by Canter and Larkin - The pattern of offending behaviour forms a circle around the offender's home base - Distribution leads us to describe an offender as either a marauder or a commuter - A marauder operates in close proximity to their home base - A commuter is likely to have travelled a distance away from their usual residence

Answer 37

- Canter and Heritage - conducted an analysis of 66 sexual assault cases - Data was examined using smallest space analysis, and several behaviours were identified as common in different samples of behaviour, such as the use of impersonal language and the lack of reaction to the victim - Each individual displayed a characteristic pattern of similar behaviours, and this can help establish whether two or more offences were committed by the same person - 'case linkage' - Supports one of the basic principles of investigative psychology and the bottom up approach, suggesting people are consistent in their behaviour

Answer 38

- Case linkage depends on the data base and will only consist of past crimes that have been solved - May have been solved because it was relatively straightforward to link these crimes together in the first place - Makes this a circular argument - Suggests investigative psychology may tell us little about crimes that have few links between them, and they may remain unsolved

Answer 39

- Lundrigan and Canter - collected information from 120 murder cases, including serial killers, in the US - Smallest space analysis revealed spatial consistency in the behaviour of the killers - The location of each body disposal site created a centre of gravity, presumably because the offenders start from their home base and may go in a different direction each time they dispose of a body, but in the end these all create a circular effect around their home base - The offender's base was almost always in the centre of the pattern - The effect was more noticeable for marauder offenders, who travelled short distances - Supports the view that geographical information can be used to identify an offender

Answer 40

- The success of geographical profiling may be reliant on the quantity of data that the police can provide - Crime recording isn't always accurate, can vary between police forces, and an estimated 75% of crimes are not even reported in the first place - Calls into question the utility of the approach that relies on the accuracy of geographical data - Even if this information is correct, critics ( like Ainsworth) claim that other factors are just as important in creating a profile, such as timing of the offence and the age and experience of the offender - Suggests geographical information alone may not always lead to the successful capture of an offender

Answer 41

- Copson - surveyed 48 police departments, and found that the advice provided by the profiler who was judged to be 'useful' in 83% of cases - Suggests its a valid investigative tool - Also revealed that it lead to an accurate identification of the offender in 3% of cases - Kocsis et al - found that chemistry students produced more accurate offender profiles on a solved murder case than experienced senior detectives

Answer 42

A biological approach to offending that attributes criminal activity to the fact that offenders are 'genetic throwbacks' or a primitive sub-species ill-suited to conforming to the rules of modern society, indicated by particular facial and cranial characteristics

Answer 43

- Italian physician who wrote a book called 'L' Uomo Delinquente' ('The Criminal Mind') in 1876 - Suggested that criminals were genetic 'throwbacks' - a primitive sub-species who were biologically different from non-criminals - Examined the facial and cranial features of 383 dead convicts and 3839 living ones, all Italian - Concluded 40% of criminal acts are committed by people with atavistic characteristics

Answer 44

- Offenders are seen as lacking evolutionary development, as their savage and untamed nature meant that they would find it impossible to adjust to the demands of civilised society, and would inevitably turn to crime - Saw offending behaviour as a natural tendency, rooted in the genes of those who engage in it - Proposed a new perspective - offending behaviour was innate and an offender was not to blame for their actions

Answer 45

- Strong and prominent jaw - High cheekbones - Dark skin - Extra toes, nipples, or fingers - Heavy brow - Large ears - Unemployed - Tattoos - Use of criminal slang - Insensitivity to pain

Answer 46

- Bloodshot eyes - Curly hair - Long ears

Answer 47

- Glistening eyes - Swollen and fleshy lips

Answer 48

Thin and reedy lips

Answer 49

- Hollin - hailed Lombroso as the 'father of modern criminology' - Credited for shifting the emphasis in crime research away from a moralistic discourse and towards a more scientific position - Lombroso's theioy is seen as the beginning of offender profiling - Suggests he made a major contribution to the science of criminology

Answer 50

- Delisi - questioned whether Lombroso's legacy is entirely positive - Attention has been drawn to the racist undertones within Lombroso's work - Many of the features identified as atavistic are most likely to be found among people of African descent - Suggesting that Africans were more likely to be offenders, which fitted the 19th Century eugenic views - Suggests that some aspects of his theory were highly subjective and influenced by racial prejudices at the time

Answer 51

- Goring - comparison between 3,000 offenders and 3,000 non-offenders, and concluded that there was no evidence that offenders are a distinct group with unusual facial and cranial characteristics - Did suggest that many people who commit crime have lower than average intelligence - Challenges the idea that offenders can be physically distinguished from the rest of the population, and are therefore unlikely to be a sub-species

Answer 52

- Failed to control important variables within his research - Did not compare to his offender sample with a non-offender control group - Could have controlled for assortment of confounding variables that might have equally explained higher crime rates in certain groups of people - Hay and Forest - demonstrated links between crime and social conditions, which would explain why offenders were more likely to be unemployed - Suggests that Lombroso's research does not meet modern scientific standards

Answer 53

- Level of moral reasoning - Cognitive distortions

Answer 54

- Hostile attribution bias - Minimisation

Answer 55

Refers to the way a person thinks about right and wrong, and is presumed that such thinking applies to moral behaviour - the higher level, the more that behaviour is driven by a sense of what is right and less driven by avoiding punishments or gaining rewards

Answer 56

Faulty, biased, and irrational ways of thinking that mean we perceive ourselves, other people, and the word inaccurately and usually negatively

Answer 57

The tendency to judge ambiguous situations or the actions of others as aggressive and/or threatening, when in reality, they may not be

Answer 58

A type of distortion that involves down playing the significance of an event or emotion, and is a common strategy when dealing with feelings of guilt

Answer 59

- Kohlberg - first researcher to apply the concept of moral reasoning to offending behaviour - Proposed that people's decisions and judgements on issues of right or wrong can be summarised by the 'Level of Moral Reasoning' theory - The higher the level, the more sophisticated the reasoning - Based his theory on people's responses to a series of moral dilemmas, such as the 'Heinz dilemma' - Many studies have suggested that offenders tend to show a lower level of moral reasoning than non-offenders - Kohlberg et al - used his moral dilemmas, and found that a group of violent youths were at a significantly lower level of moral development than non-violent youths, even after controlling for social background

Answer 60

- Offenders are more likely to be classified at the pre-conventional level, whereas non-offenders have generally progressed to the conventional level and beyond - Pre-conventional level is characterised by a need to avoid punishment and gain rewards, and is associated with less mature and childlike reasoning - Adults and adolescents who reason at this level may commit a crime if they can get away with it or gain rewards - Chandler - suggest offenders are often more egocentric and display poor social perspective-taking skills, than non-offenders - Individuals who reason at higher levels tend to sympathise more with the rights of others and exhibit more conventional behaviours, such as honesty, generosity, and non-violence

Answer 61

- Pre-conventional morality - Conventional morality - Post-conventional morality

Answer 62

- Punishment orientation - rules are obeyed to avoid punishment - Instrumental orientation on personal gain - rules are obeyed for personal gain

Answer 63

- Good boy or good girl orientation - rules are obeyed for approval - Maintenance of the social order - rules are obeyed to maintain social order

Answer 64

- Morality of contact and individual rights - rules are challenged if they infringe on the rights of others - Morality of conscience - individuals have a personal set of ethical principles

Answer 65

- Evidence suggests that a propensity for violence is often associated with a tendency to misinterpret the actions of others, and assume they are being confrontational, when they are not - Offenders may misread non-aggressive cues, which triggers a disproportionate and often violent response - Schönenberg and Jusyte - presented 55 violent offenders with images of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions - When compared with a non-aggressive matched control groups, the violent offenders were significant more likely to perceive the images as angry and hostile - Dodge and Frame - showed children a video-clip of an 'ambiguous provocation' - Children who had been identified as aggressive and rejected before the study interpreted the situation as more hostile, than those classified as non-aggressive and accepted

Answer 66

- Minimisation is an attempt to deny or downplay the seriousness of an offence - Referred to as the application of a euphemistic label by Bandura - Example - burglars may describe themselves as 'doing a job' or 'supporting my family', as a way of minimising the seriousness of their offences - Studies suggest that individuals who commit sexual offenders are particularly prone to minimisation - Barbaree - studied 26 incarcerated rapists, and found 54% denied they had committed an offence at all, and a further 40% minimised the harm they had caused to the victim

Answer 67

- Evidence for the link between level of moral reasoning and crime - Palmer and Hollin - compared moral reasoning in 332 non-offenders, using the 'Socio Moral Reflection Measure Short Form', which contains 11 moral dilemma related questions - Offender group showed less mature moral reasoning than the non-offender group - Shows consistency in Kohlberg's original findings

Answer 68

- Thornton and Reid - found that people who committed crimes for financial gain were more likely to show pre-conventional moral reasoning, than those convicted of impulsive crimes - Pre-conventional moral reasoning tends to be associated with crimes in which offenders believe they have a good chance of evading punishment - Suggests that Kohlberg's theory may not apply to all forms of crime

Answer 69

- Theory is useful in that it provides insight into the mechanics of the criminal mind - Offenders may be more childlike and egocentric when it comes to making moral judgments than the law-abiding majority - However, moral thinking is not the same as moral behaviour - Kerbs and Denton - moral reasoning that Kohlberg was interested in is more likely used to justify behaviour after it has happened

Answer 70

- CBT aims to challenge irrational thinking - In the case of offending behaviour, offenders are encouraged to 'face up' to what they have done and establish a less distorted view of their actions - Harkins et al - suggest that reduced incidence of denial and minimisation in therapy is highly associated with a reduced risk of re-offending - Suggests that the theory of cognitive distortions has practical value

Answer 71

- Level of cognitive distortion depends on the offence - Howitt and Sheldon - gathered questionnaire responses from sexual offenders - Found that non-contact sex offenders used more cognitive distortions than contact sex offenders - Those who had a previous history of offending were more likely to use distortions as a justification - Suggests that distortions are not used in the same way by all offenders

Answer 72

- Cognitive theories of offending behaviour are good at describing the criminal mind - May also help reducing reoffending in the long term as understanding that offenders minimalise their crimes may be a useful starting point in therapy - However, cognitive theories do not help in predicting future offending behaviour - Just because someone tends to have distorted thinking, doesn't inevitably mean they will become an offender

Answer 73

An explanation for offending which proposes that, through association with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques, and motives for offending behaviour

Answer 74

- Sutherland developed a set of scientific principles that could explain all types of offending - Sutherland - " the conditions which are said to cause crime should be present when crime is present, and they should be absent when the crime is absent" - Theory was designed to differentiate between individuals who became offenders and those who do not - Regardless of their social class or ethnic background

Answer 75

- Learning most often occurs through interactions with significant others who the child values most and spends the most time with - Differential association suggests that it should be possible to mathematically predict how likely it is that an individual will commit offences - We need to know the frequency, intensity, and duration of exposure to deviant and non-deviant norms and values - Offending arises from two factors - learned attitudes towards offending and the learning of specific offending techniques

Answer 76

- When a person is socialised into a group, they will be exposed to values and attitudes towards the law - Some of these values will be pro-crime and some will be anti-crime - Sutherland argues that if the number of pro-criminal attitudes outweighs the number of anti-criminal attitudes, they will go on to offend

Answer 77

- The would-be offender may learn particular techniques for committing offences - Examples - how to break into someone's house through a locked window or how to disable a car stereo before stealing it

Answer 78

- Sutherland's theory may also account for why many convicts released from prison go on to reoffend - Reasonable to assume that whilst inside prison, inmates will learn specific techniques from more experienced offenders that they may put into practice upon their release - This learning may occur through observational learning and imitation, or direct tuition from offending peers

Answer 79

- Sutherland was successful in moving the emphasis away from early biological accounts of offending and theories that suggested offending as being the product of individual weakness or immorality - This theory draws attention to the fact that deviant social circumstances and environments may be more to base for offending than deviant people - This approach is more desirable because it offers a more realistic solution to the problem of offending, instead of eugenics or punishment

Answer 80

- Runs the risk of stereotyping individuals who came from impoverished, crime-ridden backgrounds as 'unavoidably offenders' - Sutherland did take great care to point out that offending should be considered on an individual case-by-case basis - Theory tends to suggest that exposure to pro-crime values is sufficient to produce offending in those who are exposed to it - Ignores that people may choose not to offend, despite such influences, as not everyone who is exposed to pro-crime attitudes goes on to offend

Answer 81

- Can account for offending within all sectors of society - Sutherland recognised that some types of offence, such as burglary, may be clustered within certain inner-city and working-class communities - May also be the case that some offences are clustered amongst more affluent groups in society - Was particularly interested in 'white collar' corporate offences, and how this may be a feature of middle-class social groups who share deviant norms and values - Shows that it is not just the 'lower' classes who commit offences and that the principles of differential association can be used to explain all offences

Answer 82

- Difficult to test the predictions of differential association - Sutherland aimed to proved a scientific and mathematical framework within which future offending behaviour could be predicted - Meaning that predictions must be testable - Many of the concepts of are not testable because they cannot be operationalised - Hard to see how the number of pro-crime attitudes a person has or has been exposed to could be measured - Theory is built on the assumption that offending behaviour will occur when pro-crime values outnumber anti-crime ones - Without being able to measure these, we cannot know at what point the urge to offend is realised and the offending career is triggered - Means the theory doesn't have scientific credibility

Answer 83

- Sutherland suggested that the response of the family is crucial in determining whether an individual is likely to engage in offending - If the family is seen to support offending activity, making it seem legitimate and reasonable, then this becomes a major influence on the child's value system - Farrington et al - intergenerational offending was a key feature of the findings - The fact that offending behaviour seems to 'run in families' could also be interpreted as support for other explanations, such as the biological explanations - A particular combination of genes or innate neural abnormality that predisposes the person to offend, may be inherited

Answer 84

- 'Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development' was a prospective longitudinal survey of the development of offending and anti-social behaviour in 411 boys - Study began when the boys were aged 8 in 1961, and all living in a deprived, inner-city area of South London - 41% were convicted of at least one offence between the ages of 10 - 50 - Average conviction career lasted from age 19 to 28, and included 5 convictions - Most important childhood risk factors at age 8 - 10 for later offending were measures of family criminality, daring or risk-taking behaviour, low school attainment, poverty, and poor parenting - 7% of participants were defined as 'chronic offenders' because they accounted for about 1/2 of all officially recorded offences in this study

Answer 85

- Inadequate Superego - Maternal Deprivation Theory

Answer 86

- Superego is formed at the end of the phallic stage, after resolving the Oedipus/Electra complex - Works on the morality principle and exerts its influence by punishing the Ego for wrong doing through guilt, and rewards it with pride for good moral behaviour - Blackburn - argued that if the Superego is somehow deficient or inadequate, then offending behaviour is inevitable because to gives the Id 'free rein' and it is not properly controlled - 3 types of inadequate Superego - the weak Superego, the deviant Superego, and the over-harsh Superego

Answer 87

- The Weak Superego - The Deviant Superego - The Over-harsh Superego

Answer 88

- If the same-gender parent is absent during the phallic stage, a child cannot internalise a fully formed Superego, as there is no opportunity for identification - Would make immoral or offending behaviour more likely

Answer 89

- If the Superego that a child internalises has immoral or deviant values, this would lead to offending behaviour - Example - if a boy who is raised by a criminal father is not likely to associate guilt with wrong doing

Answer 90

- A healthy superego is based on identification with a parent who has firm rules but forgives transgressions - In contrast, an excessively punitive or an overly harsh parenting style, this leads to a child with an over-harsh Superego, who is crippled by guilt and anxiety - May drive the individual to perform criminal acts in order to satisfy the Superego's overwhelming need for punishment

Answer 91

- A healthy superego is based on identification with a parent who has firm rules but forgives transgressions - In contrast, an excessively punitive or an overly harsh parenting style, this leads to a child with an over-harsh Superego, who is crippled by guilt and anxiety - May drive the individual to perform criminal acts in order to satisfy the Superego's overwhelming need for punishment

Answer 92

- The effect of an inadequate Superego is to allow primitive emotional demands to become uppermost in guiding moral behaviour - Psychodynamic approach deals with the emotional life of the individual - Acknowledges the role of anxiety and guilt in the development of offending behaviour - Means that lack of guilt is relevant to understanding offending behaviour, such as maternal deprivation theory

Answer 93

- Bowlby - argued that the ability to form meaningful relationships in adulthood was dependent on the child forming a loving and continuous relationship with a mother-figure - Failure to establish such a relationship during the first few years of life means a child is likely to experience a number of damaging and irreversible consequences later on in life - Development of an affectionless psychopathy personality type - Characterised by a lack of guilt, empathy, and feeling for others - Maternally deprived individuals are likely to engage in acts of delinquency and cannot develop close relationships with others

Answer 94

- Bowlby - argued that the ability to form meaningful relationships in adulthood was dependent on the child forming a loving and continuous relationship with a mother-figure - Failure to establish such a relationship during the first few years of life means a child is likely to experience a number of damaging and irreversible consequences later on in life - Development of an affectionless psychopathy personality type - Characterised by a lack of guilt, empathy, and feeling for others - Such maternally deprived individuals are likely to engage in acts of delinquency and cannot develop close relationships with others

Answer 95

- Bowlby conducted interviews with the 44 thieves and their families - Found that 14 of the sample he studied showed personality and behavioural characteristics that could be classified as affectionless psychopathy - Of the 14, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers during the first two years of life - In a non-offender control group, only 2 had experienced similar early separation - Concluded that the effects of maternal deprivation had caused affectionless and delinquent behaviour among the juvenile thieves

Answer 96

- Goreta - conducted a Freudian-style analysis of 10 offenders referred for psychiatric treatment - In all those assessed, disturbances in Superego formation were diagnosed - Each offender experienced unconscious feelings of guilt and the need for self-punishment - Explained this as the consequence of an over-harsh Superego, with the need for punishment manifesting itself as a desire to commit acts of wrong doing and offend - Seems to support the role of psychic conflicts and an over-harsh Superego as a basis for offending

Answer 97

- Generally, the central principles of the inadequate Superego theory are not supported - If this theory was correct, we would expect harsh and punitive parents to raise children who constantly experience feelings of guilt and anxiety - Evidence suggests that the opposite is true - Kochanska et al - parents who rely on harsher forms of punishment tend to raise children who are rebellious and rarely express feelings of guilt or self-criticism - Calls into question the relationship between a strong and punitive parent and excessive feelings of guilt within the child

Answer 98

- A key assumption within Freud's theory is that girls develop a weaker Superego than boys because identification with the same-gender parent is not as strong - Girls do not experience the intense emotion associated with castration anxiety and are under less pressure to identify with their mother - Means their Superego is less realised in full - Women should be more prone to offending behaviour than men - Rates of imprisonment in the UK suggest about 20 times more men are in prison than women - Hoffman - child participants were required to resist a temptation - Found hardly any evidence of gender difference, and when there was, girl appeared to be more moral than boys - Suggests there is alpha bias at the heart of Freud's theory, and means it may not be appropriate as an explanation of offending behaviour

Answer 99

- Theory is only based on an association between maternal deprivation and offending - Lewis - analysed data drawn from interviews with 500 young people - Found maternal deprivation was a poor predictor of future offending and the ability to form close relationships in adolescence - Even if there was a link between children who have experienced frequent or prolonged separation from their mother and offending behaviour, this is not necessarily a causal relationship - Countless other reasons for this possible link - Example - maternal deprivation may be due to growing up in poverty - Suggests maternal deprivation may be one of the reasons for later offending behaviour, but not the only reason

Answer 100

- Psychodynamic explanations were some of the first to link early experience in childhood to moral behaviour and offending - Now a key understanding in contemporary criminology - Drew attention to the emotional basis of offending, a factor that is largely ignored by other explanations - Unconscious concepts within this theory are not open to empirical testing - In the absence of supporting evidence, this argument can only be judged on its face value, rather than its scientific worth

Answer 101

- Custodial sentencing - Behaviour modification in custody - Anger management - Restorative justice

Answer 102

A decision made by a court, that punishment for a crime should involve time being in custody, which could be in prison or a closed therapeutic/educational institution

Answer 103

Reoffending, or a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behaviour, usually repeatedly

Answer 104

- Deterrence - Incapacitation - Retribution - Rehabilitation

Answer 105

- Unpleasant prison experience is designed to put off people from engaging in offending behaviour - 'General deterrence' aims to send a broad message to members of a given society that crime will not be tolerated - 'Individual deterrence' should prevent the individual from repeating the same offences in light of their experiences - Based on the behaviourist idea of conditioning through vicarious reinforcement

Answer 106

- The offender is taken out of society to prevent them from re-offending, as a means of protecting the public - The need for incapacitation is likely to depend on the severity of the offence and the nature of the offender

Answer 107

- Society is enacting revenge for the offence by making the offender suffer, and the level of suffering should be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence - Based on the biblical nation of 'an eye for an eye' - the offender should pay for their actions in some way - Many people see prison as the best option for this aim and alternatives are often criticised as soft options

Answer 108

- Many people would see the main objective of prison as being for reform, not just to punish - Upon release, offenders should leave prison better adjusted and ready to take their place in society - Prison should provide opportunities to develop skills and training, or to access treatment programmes, as well as give the offender the chance to reflect on their offence

Answer 109

- Stress and depression - Institutionalisation - Prisonisation

Answer 110

- Suicide rates are considerably higher in prison than in the general population - As well as incidents of self-harm and self-mutilation - Stress of the prison experience also increases the risk of developing psychological disorders following release

Answer 111

Having adapted to the norms and routines of prison life, inmates may become so accustomed to these that they are no longer able to function on the outside

Answer 112

- Refers to the way in which prisoners are socialised into adopting an 'inmate code' - Behaviour that may be considered unacceptable in the outside world may be encouraged and rewarded inside the walls of the institution

Answer 113

- Recidivism rates in ex-prisoners tells us the extent to which prison acts as an effective deterrent - Difficult to obtain clear figures for recidivism rates for various reasons - Example - depends whether you look at reoffending within a year of release or longer - Typically in the UK, the Ministry of Justice reports proven figures within one year of release - Yukhnenko et al - suggests the UK figure is 45%, based on the Ministry of Justice figures - Reoffending rates vary within time period after release, age of offender, crime committed, and country - UK, Australia, and Denmark regularly report rates in excess of 60% - Yukhnenko et al - rates in Norway may be as low as 20% - Less emphasis placed on incarceration, and greater emphasis placed on rehabilitation and skills development

Answer 114

- Bartol - has suggested that for many offenders imprisonment can be 'brutal, demeaning, and generally devastating' - Ministry of Justice - 119 people killed themselves in prisons in England and Wales in 2016 - Increase of 29 (39%) from 2015 - Average suicide of one every three days - nine times higher than the general population - Most at risk are young men during the first 24 hours of confinement - Prison Reform Trust - found that 25% of women and 15% of men reported symptoms of psychosis

Answer 115

- Figures in Prison Reform Trust do not include the number of inmates who were experiencing psychotic symptoms prior to incarceration - Many of those convicted may have pre-existing psychological and emotional difficulties at the time they were convicted - Importation Model argues that prisoners may import some of their psychological problems, so we don't know if this is a problem with the prison regime or something else, e.g. trauma of being incarcerated

Answer 116

- Rehabilitation objective offers offenders a chance to become better people during their time in prison - Improved character means they may be able to lead a crime-free life when back in society - Many offenders access education and training whilst in prison, increasing the possibility they will find employment upon release - Shirley - Vera Institute of Justice claims that offenders who take part in college education programmes report fewer incidents of violence

Answer 117

- May undergo a more dubious eduction as part of their sentence - Incarceration with long-term offenders may give younger inmates the opportunity to learn the 'tricks of the trade' from more experienced prisoners - May gain criminal contacts whilst in prison that they may follow up when they are released

Answer 118

- Onepoll - survey found that 47% saw the primary purpose of prison as punishing the offender for wrongdoing - Many saw current prison regimes as 'too soft', like a 'holiday camp' that wouldn't deter existing or would-be offenders - 40% held the view that the prison's main emphasis should be on reform and rehabilitation - Prison should provide access to training and treatment so that offenders can be effectively reintegrated back into society - Overcrowding and lack of funds are seen as barriers to these

Answer 119

An application of the behaviourist approach to treatment based on operant conditioning - the general aim is to replace undesirable behaviours with more desirable ones throughout the selective use of positive and negative reinforcement (token economies)

Answer 120

- All human behaviour is learned, so it should be possible to unlearn behaviour - Behaviour modification programmes are designed to reinforce obedient behaviour in offenders and punishing disobedience, in the hope that the former continues and the later becomes extinct

Answer 121

- A desirable behaviour may include avoiding confrontation, following prison rules, keeping one's cell orderly, etc - Prisoners are given a token each time they perform a desirable behaviour - Each of these behaviours and rewards would be made clear to the prisoners before the programme is implemented - Emphasised that non-compliance, or disobedience, may result in the tokens and privileges being withheld or removed - Tokens are not rewarding themselves, but derive their value from their association with a reward and are called secondary reinforcers - Tokens might be exchanged for a phone call to a loved one, time in the gym or exercise yard, extra cigarettes or food, etc - Primary reinforcers, as they are directly rewarding

Answer 122

- Operationalise target behaviours - Scoring system - Train staff

Answer 123

- Target behaviour is operationalised by breaking it down into its component parts - These 'units' of behaviour should be objective and measurable, and agreed with inmates and staff in advance - E.g. target behaviour may be improved interaction with other inmates - May be broken down into not touching other prisoners, speaking politely to others, etc

Answer 124

- Staff and prisoners should be made aware of the scoring system, and how much each particular behaviour is 'worth' - Behaviours are hierarchal in the way that some are regarded as more demanding than others, so receive greater rewards - E.g. working co-operatively with others is more important than not swearing - Some token economy systems may award tokens directly, whereas others may award points which are then converted into tokens - Gendreau et al - the recommendation is that reinforcements should outnumber punishments 4:1

Answer 125

- Staff need to be given full training in order to implement the token economy system successfully - Training may involve several hours for a number of weeks - Aim is to standardise the procedures so that all staff are rewarding the same behaviours in the same way - Must also record when they have awarded tokens so the progress of individual prisoners can be assessed

Answer 126

- Hobbs and Holt - introduced a token economy programme with groups of young offenders across three behavioural units, with a fourth as a control - Significant difference in positive behaviour compared to the non-token economy group - Field et al - found a token economy programme used with young people with behavioural problems was generally effective - Still a number of young people who did not respond - Later, these youths were placed on a special programme where the rewards were more immediate and more frequent - Positive results

Answer 127

- Success of these systems depends on a consistent approach from staff - Bassett and Blanchard found any benefits were lost if staff applied the techniques inconsistently - Researchers believe this was due to factors such as lack of appropriate training or high staff turnover, which is a particular feature of many UK prisons - Suggests that behaviour modification schemes must ensure full and consistent staff participation if they are to work

Answer 128

- Appeal of behaviour modification rests upon the ease with which it can be administered - No need for a specialist professional to be involved, like for other treatments such as anger management - Can be designed and implemented by virtually anyone in any institution - Cost-effective and easy to follow once workable method of reinforcement have been established - Suggests these techniques can be established in most prisons and accessed by most prisoners

Answer 129

- May not affect long term behaviour - Blackburn - behaviour modification has 'little rehabilitative value' and any positive changes in behaviour that occur whilst in prison may be quickly lost upon release - Cognitive based treatments, like anger management, may be more likely to lead to permanent behavioural change - Require the offender to understand the cause of their offending and to take responsibility for their own rehabilitation - Offenders can easily play along with a token economy system in order to access rewards, producing very little change in their overall character - May explain why an offender may quickly regret to their former behaviour upon release or removal of the programme

Answer 130

- Behaviour modification programmes have been associated with decreased conflict penal institutions and more successful management of the prison population - Can reduce pressure and stress on staff in a sometimes hostile and difficult environment - Critics (Moya and Achtenberg) have described behaviour modification as manipulative and dehumanising - Participation in the scheme is obligatory rather than optional - Human rights campaigners argue that withdrawal of 'privileges' such as exercise and contact with love ones is unethical

Answer 131

A therapeutic programme that involves identifying the signs that trigger anger, as well as learning techniques to calm down and deal with the situation in a positive way

Answer 132

- Aim is to not to prevent anger, but to recognise it and manage it - Form of CBT - Three stages - cognitive preparation, skills acquisition, and application practice

Answer 133

- Novaco - suggests that cognitive factors trigger the emotional arousal which generally precedes aggressive acts - Argues that in some people, anger is often quick to surface, especially in situations that are perceived to be anxiety-induing or threatening - Anger is reinforced by the individual's feeling of congtrol in that situation - Anger management programmes are a form CBT - Individual is taught how to recognise the cognitive factors that trigger their anger and loss of control - Then encouraged to develop techniques which bring about conflict resolution without the need for violence

Answer 134

- Requires an offender to reflect on past experience and consider the typical pattern of their anger - Offender learns to identify those situations which can act as triggers to anger - The the way the offender interprets the event is irrational, the therapist's role is to make this clear - In re-defining the situation as non-threatening, the therapist is attempting to break what may well have been an automatic response for the offender

Answer 135

- Offenders are introduced to a wide range of techniques and skills to help them deal with anger-provoking situations more rationally and effectively - Cognitive - positive self-talk to encourage calmness, e.g. counting to ten after a stressful event - Behavioural - assertiveness training in how to communicate more effectively, which will become an automatic response if practiced regularly - Physiological - deal with the physical reaction to anger such as relation training or meditation, aiming to control one's emotions before they control you

Answer 136

- Offenders are given the opportunity to practise their skills within a carefully controlled environment - Role play is likely to involve the offender and therapist re-enacting scenarios that may have escalated feelings of anger and acts of violence in the past - Requires a certain amount of commitment from the offender - must see each scenario as real - Requires a certain amount of bravery from the therapist to 'wind up' the offender, in order to assess their progress - If the offender successfully deals with the role play, they are given positive reinforcement by the therapist

Answer 137

- Keen et al - studied the progress made with young offenders aged 17 -21, who took part in a nationally recognised anger management programme - National Anger Management Package was developed by the England and Wales Prison Service in 1992, and updated in 1995 - Comprises of 8 two hour sessions - First 7 are over a three-week period, and the last session is a month afterwards - Initial issues with offenders not taking the course seriously and individuals forgetting routine, such as bringing their dairy along - Final outcomes were generally positive - Offenders reported increased awareness of their anger management difficulties and an increased capacity to exercise self-control

Answer 138

- Longer lasting benefits then behaviour modification - Tries to tackle one of the causes of offending - the cognitive processes that trigger anger and offending behaviour - Alternative treatments like behaviour modification only deal with surface behaviour and not the process that drive them - Anger management may give offenders new insight into the cause of their criminality and allow them to self-discover ways to managing themselves outside of a prison setting - Suggests anger management is more likely to lead to permanent behavioural change than behaviour modification

Answer 139

- Follow-up studies of anger management tend to not support this assumption - Blackburn - points out that there is very little evidence to suggest it reduces recidivism in the long term - May be because the application phase still relies on role play, which may not properly reflect all triggers that are present in a real-world situation - Any progress made in therapy may count for little when compared to (e.g). a busy city centre pub on a Saturday night - May not reduce reoffending

Answer 140

- Success may depend on individual factors - Howells et al - conducted an investigation with Australian offenders - Found that participation in anger management programme had little overall impact when compared to a control group who received no treatment - Not true for all offenders in the treatment programme - Significant progress was made with offenders who had showed intense levels of anger before the programme - Offenders who were open to change and highly motivated from the outset experienced similar gains - 'treatment readiness' - May only benefit offenders who fit a certain profile

Answer 141

- Expensive to run as they require the services of highly-trained specialist who are used to dealing with violent offenders - Many prisons may not have the resources to fund such programmes - Success is often based on the commitment of those who participate, and this may be a problem if prisoners are uncooperative and apathetic - Change takes time and this is likely to add to the expense of delivering effective programmes - Effective anger management programmes are probably not going to work in most prisons

Answer 142

- Anger management approach suggests there is a causal relationship between anger and offending - Anger is assumed to be an important precursor to offending, in that it produces the emotional state necessary to commit crime - Loza and Loza-Fanous - found no differences in levels of anger between offenders classed as violent and non-violent - Suggested anger management programmes may be misguided, as they provide offenders with a justification for their behaviour

Answer 143

A system for dealing with offending behaviour which focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims (survivors), enabling an offender to see the impact of their crime and serves to empower survivors by giving them a 'voice'

Answer 144

- Historically, a person convicted of a criminal offence would have been regarded as committing a crime against the state - Restorative justice programmes switch the emphasis from the needs of the state (to enforce the law and punish) to the needs of the individual victim (to feel compensated in some way and come to terms with the crime) - Seeks to be a healing process - Braithwaite - suggests 'crime hurts, justice should heal' - Less about retribution and more about reparation - repairing the harm they have done - Focuses on two things - survivor of the crime and their recovery, and the offender and their recovery/rehabilitation process

Answer 145

- Trained mediator supervises the meeting - Non-courtroom setting, where offenders voluntarily meet with survivors - Can be a face-to-face meeting or conducted remotely - Survivor is given the opportunity to confront the offender and explain how the incident affected them - Enables the offender to comprehend the consequences of their actions, including the emotional distress they caused - Active involvement of all parties involved in the process wherever possible - Focus is on the positive outcomes for both survivors and offenders - Other relevant community members may have a role in the process to explain the effects of the crime, such as neighbours, friends, and family members

Answer 146

- Restorative justice may occur pre-trial and the offender's involvement mat be considered during sentencing - Could also function alongside a prison sentence or as an alternative to prison, particularly a young offender - Also an incentive to reduce the length of a sentence - Restitution is often seen as a monetary payment by the offender to the survivor for the harm resulting from the offence - An offender may make some financial restitution to the survivor, which may reflect the psychological damage cause or physical damage - Other variations of the scheme may involve the offender the repairing the damages themselves - Can also be in a more emotional sense - Offender can support the healing process by repairing and rebuilding the survivor's confidence or self-esteem

Answer 147

- Independent body whose role is to establish clear standards for the use of restorative justice and to support survivors and specialist professionals in the field - Referred to as restorative practice - Advocates the use of restorative practice beyond dealing with crime - Can be used in preventing and managing conflict in schools, children's services, workplaces, hospitals and communities

Answer 148

- Evidence suggests it has positive outcomes - Shapland et al - RJC reported the results of a major seven-year research project - 85% of survivors reported satisfaction with the process of meeting their offender face-to-face - 78% would recommend it to other people experiencing a similar situation - 60% felt the process had made them feel better about the incident, enabling them to move on - 2% said it had made them feel worse - Suggests restorative justice achieve some of its aims, helping survivors of crime cope with the aftermath of the incident

Answer 149

- Not all research is overwhelmingly positive - Wood and Suzuki - argue that restorative processes are not as survivor-focused as often reported in satisfaction surveys - Say that restorative justice processes can become distorted, such as when survivors are used as a way of helping to rehabilitate offenders, rather than being helped themselves - Suggests that the needs of the survivor in restorative justice may be seen as secondary to the need to rehabilitate offenders

Answer 150

- Seems to lead to a decrease in recidivism - Strang et al - meta-analysis comparing offenders who experienced face-to-face restorative justice schemes with those who just experienced custodial sentencing - Restorative justice group was significantly less likely to reoffend - Larger reduction in offenders convicted of violent crime, than those convicted of property damage - Bain - review found lowered recidivism rates with adult offenders, especially when using one-to-one contact, rather than general community involvement - Suggests it has a positive impact on reoffending, maybe even more so for some types of offences than others, as well as some approaches

Answer 151

- Success of restorative justice programmes may hinge on an offender's intentions being honourable - Must be taking part because they genuinely regret the hurt they caused and they want to make amends - Gijseghem - suggests that offenders may use restorative justice to avoid punishment, down playing their faults, or even taking pride in their relationship with the survivor using direct contact - Would explain why not all offenders benefit from restorative justice, and go on to reoffend

Answer 152

- National Police Chief's Council policy does not support the use of restorative justice in domestic violence cases - Liebman - argues that at the main concern is that the power imbalance between the abuser and the abused puts pressure on survivors - May fear the worst if the do not go along with their partner or ex-partners suggestions during mediation - Lünnemenn and Wolthuis - argue that pre-trial mediation in domestic violence cases produces positive results for survivors - Sen et al - suggest that restorative approaches are particularly useful in cases of intimate partner violence where a couple has chosen to stay together, as they can address the harm caused and plan for the future

Forensic Psychology Flashcards

(177 cards)