Forensic psychology key terms

Question 1

Offender profiling

Answer 1

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

Question 2

The top-down approach

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Organised offender

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Disorganised offender

Answer 4

An offender who shows little evidence of planning, leaves clues at the scene and tends to be socially and sexually incompetent. They will usually have lower than average intelligence.

Question 5

The bottom up approach

Answer 5

Profilers work up from the evidence collected at to crime scene to develop hypothesis about the likely characteristics, motivation and social background of an offender.

Question 6

Investigative psychology

Answer 6

A form of bottom up profiling that matches details from the crime scene with statistical analysis of typical offender behaviour patterns based on psychological theory.

Question 7

Geographical profiling

Answer 7

A form of bottom up profiling based on the principle of spatial consistency- that an offenders operational base and possible future offences are revealed by the geographical location of their previous crimes.

Question 8

Atavistic form

Answer 8

A biological approach of offending that attributes criminal activity to the fact that offenders are genetic throwbacks or a primitive sub species ill suited to conforming with the modern rules of society. Such individuals are distinguishable by particular facial and cranial characteristics.

Question 9

Genetics

Answer 9

Genes consists of DNA strands. DNA produces ‘instructions’ for general physical features of an organism (eye colour, height) and specific physical features (neurotransmitter levels and size of brain structures). These may impact on psychological features (intelligence and mental disorders). Genes are transmitted from parent to offspring ie inherited.

Question 10

Neural explanation

Answer 10

Any explanation of behaviour (an its disorders) in terms of (dys)functions of the brain and nervous system. This includes that activity of the brain structures such as the prefrontal cortex , and neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin.

Question 11

The criminal personality

Answer 11

A feature of Eysenck’s theory of crime, an individual who scores highly on measures of extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism and cannot easily be conditioned, is cold and unfeeling, and is likely to engage in offending behaviour.

Question 12

Level of moral reasoning

Answer 12

Moral reasoning refers to the way a person thinks about right and wrong. It is presumed that such thinking applies to moral behaviour. The higher the level, the more that behaviour is driven by a sense of what is right and the less it is driven by just avoiding punishment or the disapproval of others.

Question 13

Cognitive distortions

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Hostile attribution bias

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Minimalisation

Answer 15

A type of deception that involves downplaying the significance of an event or emotion. This is a common strategy when dealing with feelings of guilt.

Question 16

Differential association theory

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Psychodynamic explanation

Answer 17

A perspective that describes the different forces (dynamics), most of which are unconscious, that operate on the mind and direct human behaviour and experience.

Question 18

Custodial sentencing

Answer 18

A decision made by a court that punishment for a crime should include time un ‘custody’- prison (incarceration) or in some other closed therapeutic and/or educational institution ie psychiatric hospital.

Question 19

Recidivism

Answer 19

Reoffending, a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behaviour. In the context of a crime, a convicted offender who reoffends usually does so repeatedly.

Question 20

Behaviour modification

Answer 20

An application of the behaviourist approach to treatment (management of offender in penal institutions). It is based on the principles of operant conditioning. The general aim is to replace undesirable behaviours with more desirable ones through the selective use of positive and/or negative reinforcement.

Question 21

Anger management

Answer 21

A therapeutic programme that involves identifying the signs that trigger anger as well as learning techniques to calm down and deal with situations in a positive way. The aim of anger management is not to prevent anger but recognise and manage it. Anger management can be offered in prison to encourage elf awareness and facilitate rehabilitations.

Question 22

Restorative justice

Answer 22

A system for dealing with offending behaviour with focusses on rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims (survivors). This enables an offender to see the impact of their violent crime and serves to empower survivors by giving them a voice.