Forensic Psychology Flashcards
(18 cards)
What is the American ‘top-down’ approach?
- Stemmed from the FBI who interviewed 36 killers and gained insight into their thinking and behaviour.
- They were classified into two groups: organised and disorganised.
ORGANISED
- Intelligent, socially and sexually competent
- Lived with somebody
- Planned attacks
DISORGANISED
- Less intelligent, socially and sexually incompetent
- Loners
- Impulsive attacks, not planned
EVAL
- Small sample size so it may not be generalisable
- Self-report can be biased or overexaggerated by the criminals.
- Lacks temporal validity: interviews were done in the 70s.
What is the British ‘bottom-up’ approach?
- Made by CANTER and uses investigative psychology (applies psychological research and theories to crime).
- Uses small, irrelevant details from the crime scene to create a bigger picture.
- Used other instances of crimes to match the current one
- Canter used geographical profiling for information in a crime scene.
- This is because the behaviour of the offender would reveal information about their everyday life and characteristics.
Using geographical profiling he made 2 types of criminals:
MARAUDERS
- Commit crimes within the neighbourhood
- This is because they know the area well and escape routes
COMMUTERS
- Commit crimes away from their neighbourhood to avoid detection.
EVAL
- Real application: criminalised a serial rapist in Kilburn
- More objective method: top-bottom uses interviews which may be biased
- Can be proactive and time-consuming whilst the criminal is still gathering victims.
What is a downside to top-down and bottom-up profiling?
Can only be used for limited range of crimes such as murders or rapes.
Small success rates
However, it is suggested that this profiling allows to build an understanding on the type of person rather than the actual identification of a criminal.
What did Lombroso say about characteristics of criminials?
- He was a positivist criminologist, no free will was involved and instead physical and psychological features play a part in crime
- Lombroso concluded that criminals had a likely chance to have atavistic features (STRONG JAW AND HEAVY BROWS) compared to non-criminals.
Other features also: drooping eyelids, large ears, lobeless ears, flat nose, long arms and sloping shoulders.
He suggested that criminal behaviour came from PRIMITIVE INSTINCTS which had survived the evolutionary process and that ATAVISTIC features came from “genetic throwbacks”.
He also suggested that criminals would have curly hair and bloodshot eyes.
STRENGTHS
- Lomborso incorporated biology into criminology
- He also used an interactionist approach to explain criminal behaviour.
LIMITATIONS
- Didn’t compare to non-criminals to see whether his atavistic features were only unique to criminals
- Racism: black people have curly hair which according to Lombroso means they’re all criminals.
How does criminality have a genetic bias?
ADOPTION STUDIES
Mednick: analysed around 15k adopted children for criminality between their biological parents and their adopted ones.
He found that if one parent had a criminal conviction that the child could also have one too. It was higher compared to non-criminal parents.
THIS suggests that criminality has a genetic bias, however, it is low. This shows that there could be other factors to criminality.
EVAL
- Criminality may have been normalised in crime parent households so it can increase likelihood.
What are the neural explanations for offending behaviour
RAINE
- Investigated the link between brain dysfunction and criminality.
- Suggested that there is a biological dysfunction within the brain causing the individual to commit acts of violence.
- Used PET scans to compare criminals brains to non-criminals and found reduced glucose metabolism in the prefrontal cortex.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the biological explanation
STRENGTHS
- Biological theories can often be tested scientifically, making them more objective and replicable data
WEAKNESSES
- Assumes behaviour is driven by biological influences and doesn’t factors like environment or social.
- Reductionist
- Brain damage could be because they are doing crime not the cause of their crimes.
What did Eysenck say about criminal behaviour
He created three personality scale types:
NEUROTICISM-STABILITY
individuals who were more neurotic show traits of anxiety and restlessness and less neurotic were calm.
EXTRAVERSION-INTROVERSION
more extravert = sociable, impulsive and assertive
less extravert = quiet, passive and reserved
PSYCHOTICISM
high psychoticism = aggressive, hostile and uncaring.
Individuals are in one personality type through a genetic predisposition but also the environment plays a role too, leading to criminal behaviours.
Extraversion was for young criminals
Neuroticism was for older criminals.
EVAL
- Studies that backed this came from self-report measures and could be biased and lack reliability.
- Reductionist, multiple factors can contribute to crime rather than just simple 3 personality types
What did Yochelson and Samenow say about criminals thinking patterns
- Long study examined 250+ male offenders from a variety of different backgrounds,
- Compared the two groups: one was on drugs because they were found not gulity cuz they are mentally ill
Other group was just normal prisoners. - They were interviewed over several years.
FINDINGS
- Many thinking patterns were discovered such as the need to gain power, lack of trust, empathy etc.
SHOWS THAT
- Criminals think the same
EVAL
- No control group, it lacks validity.
- Gender bias, only males are studied so results lack generalisability
- Backs cognitive approach to crime
What are the 4 cognitive disortions?
- Being self-centred
- Minimisation
- Lack accountability
- Hostile attribution bias “make neutral situations hostile”.
What are Kohlberg’s levels of moral reasons and eval
Kohlberg argues that moral understanding increases as you grow older because you understand the social world more.
He would test PPs on dillemas and ask whether the actions were justified and interested in their reasons.
Using those findings he made the 3 levels of moral reasoning:
PRECONVENTIONAL
- action is morally wrong if the person who commits the crime gets caught.
- the right behaviour is in your own interest.
CONVENTIONAL
- right behaviour is determined if other people think it is right
- important to obey laws and follow social conventions because it helps society to function
POSTCONVENTIONAL
- right course of action is one that promote the greatest good for a lot of people.
- driven on actions that are universal of right and wrong and isn’t contextual.
CRIMINALS DON’T HAVE THE SAME MORAL REASONING AND MAY DO CRIME BECAUSE THEY THINK IT IS RIGHT
EVAL
- Gender biased, males were studied so it lacks generalisability.
- Hard to determine on which level you’re on because the context matters.
How does an inadequete superego affect criminality
INADEQUATE SUPEREGO
- criminality could be due to abnormal development of the id, ego and superego which occurs during early childhood.
- superego is the angel sorta
weak superegos: often found in those with no same sex parent, as they don’t know the parent’s moral code. they don’t have a role model nand therefore commit crime and fully respond to id
deviant superego: found when the same sex is immoral. this can lead to crime as their same sex parent has shown a template of immorality from childhood
strong superego:
they may always think theyre gulity in a strong ego and commit crime to get caught and relive themselves.
How do defence mechanisms affect criminality
DISPLACEMENT
REPRESSION
DENIAL
They can displace aggression which explains their antisocial behaviour. if they cannot control it, the aggression may spill out of their unconscious and cause offending behaviour
a triggering stimulus can release repression and denial urges and result in crime
eval psychodyna
- hard to test the unconscious
- backed data are often from case studies so its hard to generalise
what is the differential association theory
criminal behaviour is learnt through interactions with other deviants
they learn techniques methods motives and attitudses
- crime is learnt
- comes from interacting and communciation
- learnt whilst among small groups of people
- learn the tech motivation and attitudes
- criminal determines favourable or unfavourable
- repeated exposure can increase criminality
7) anyone can be a crimna
strengths
- accounts for a range of crime not just murder, rape etc.
- studies show correlation of criminal communiciation and criminality
weaknesses
- acts like everyone is influenced
- defining crime is hard as some criminals think it is moral
why are prisons a thing
- retribution
- rehabilitation
- incapatation
- denuncation
- detterence
pay for their crime
reform offenders
protect public from them
showing public that this is wrong
stops other criminals and warns them
what effect does imprisonment have on criminals
- mental health worsens
suicide risks r higher and high gulit. - institutionalism: u dont feel human
- criminal university: crime hotspot and increasing reoffender rates
- labelling outside and cant get a job and return to crime to gain money or say f u to ppl
how does anger management prevent reoffending
- approach assumes that criminiality comes from anger and hopes that individuals can learn to control their anger.
- based on cbt techniques
- helps to improve self-awareness and control
strengths
- can help after prison life and reform
- long-lasting effect compared to token economy
weakness
- hostile attribution bias, some criminals think that their anger is justified no matter and that it is normal
- over reliance on therapy
- time consuming
