Flashcards in Forensics Deck (59):
1
What is restorative justice?
where a criminal attempts to put right their wrong and involves communication with the victim
2
What are the aims of restorative justice?
1 rehabilitation of offenders (victim has an opportunity to explain the impact on their lives
2 Atonement for wrongdoing - may pay for their actions e.g. compensation
3 Victim's perspective is made aware of and they are no longer powerless
3
What is the difference between the old and new model of restorative justice?
Early model focuses just on criminal and victim but modern one focuses on the wider community
4
What are peace circles?
set up where there is violence and community offers support to the victim and welcomes the offender so that a mutual understanding can be obtained
5
How has this been successful (evaluation)?
Victims felt the scheme was beneficial and found an 85% satisfaction rate
6
How had it helped reduce reoffending?
Research has examined the RJ and showed reduced re-offending rates
7
What are the ethical issues?
Victims may feel worse afterwards as facing the offender can have some distressing effects
8
How does anger management deal with offending behaviour?
It aims to reduce anger by using CBT to replace it with a new behaviour
9
What are the 2 aims of it?
Attempts to reduce the anger in prison and in the long run reducing recidivism (re-offending)
10
What is the process of the CBT?
1 Cognitive reconstruction - self awareness and controlling cognitive functions to do with anger
2 Regulation of arousal - learning to control the physiological state
3 Behavioural strategies - e.g. problem solving and assertiveness
11
What is stress inoculation?
It aims to provide a kind of vaccination against future infections
12
What are the stages of the stress inoculation?
1 client learns about anger and how it can be adaptive and non adaptive
2 skill acquisition - taught skills how to manage anger
3 then they apply the skills in role play and receive feedback
13
What is the success of anger management programmes?
these programmes are successful in reducing anger and thus re-offending rates
14
Short vs long term goals (evaluation)
Mainly focuses on short term goals of reducing anger in prison and fewer studied looked at the long term effects on recidivism- but did find reduction in re-offending
15
Methodological problems?
difficult to make comparisons in variables in anger progrannes as some were quite brief and different types of offender
16
What is behaviour modification in custody?
An alternative to punishment - using reward to reinforce desirable behaviour
17
What type of conditioning is behaviour modification based on?
Operant conditioning
18
What is token economy?
A system of exchange of goods where token NS can be exchanged for a reward
19
What is the aim of token economy?
Reinforcing new behaviours and prisoners are given tokens when they perform a desirable behaviour
20
How is punishment used in token economy?
removing tokens if behaviour is undesirable
21
How can complex behaviour be taught?
Through shaping where tokens are given for behaviours that eventually become more complex
22
What was Hobbs and Holt's study?
observed token economy a state training school for delinquents and the staff had to define target behaviours and discuss methods of observing and they received tokens for it
Social behaviour increased
23
What is an advantage of the token economy?
It is easy to implement as officers just need to think about what behaviours are desirable and improve the prison environment
24
Individual difference?
Some respond to operant conditioning better than others - less successful with violent offenders
25
What are the ethical issues?
violation of human rights and individual behaviour is manipulated
26
What is recidivism?
When a person re-offends after receiving punishment
27
What is custodial sentencing?
The court requires an offender to be held in prison
28
What are the aims of custodial sentencing?
To protect the public by putting criminals in prison
to punish an offender and prevent recidivism
to prevent the general
Victim feeling justice
To rehabilitate offenders
29
What are the psychological effects of custodial sentencing?
De-individuation: low levels of sel evaluation and aren't concerned about other
Depression, self harm and suicide
Overcrowding and lack of privacy
Effects on Family
30
What are individual differences?
reduced length in custodial sentencing can lead to increased recidivism and young people are more likely to re-offend
31
What are the benefits of non custodial sentencing?
costs of prison care means alternative are favoured
32
Whats is another weakness?
There are high rates of recidivism showing punishment doesn't work
33
What does the psycho dynamic approach suggest? (explanations for offending)
Emphasises change and development in an individual where drive is the central concept - early experiences shape adult personality
34
What is the maternal deprivation theory?
Bowlby said prolonged separations between mother and child can have long term emotional consequences before the age of 2 if no substitute mother is available - shown in 44 juvenile thieves study
35
What does the superego theory suggest?
It is the morality principle
36
What factors of the superego cause offending behaviour?
A weak superego - supego developed at the phallic stage and a child who doesn't identify with the same sex parent or their parent is absent
2 Harsh superego - a strong feeling of identification with a strict parent causes excessive feeling of guilt when they commit a crime
3 Deviant superego - child takes on same moral attitudes as parents e.g. criminal parents
37
What is a strength of the psychodynamic approach?
It is the only explanation that deals with emotional factors and shows how anxiety and the feel of rejection may contribute
Nature and Nurture
38
How are there no causal findings?
Bowlby's 44 juvenile theives study drew the conclusion that prolonged separation caused emotional problems but there may be other factors causing emotional problems
39
Why is there gender bias?
Phallic stage proposed women should develop a weaker supergo and so must be criminals but it is shown men are more criminals
40
What is the differential association theory?
It is a learning theory that interactions with others lead to the formation of attitudes about crime
41
What is learned?
A child learns whether a behaviour is desirable or not and learns methods of crime and what crimes are acceptable in society
42
Who is it learned from?
From initimate personal groups which supports or rejects criminal behaviour
43
How is it learned?
Frequency, length and personal meaning of social associations determine degree of influence through direct conditioning watching role models and vicarious reinforcement
44
What is a major strength of this theory?
It changed people's views about origin of criminal behaviour and led to moving away from blaming the person and pointing to social factors that could lead to white collar crimes
45
Why doesn't it include biological factors?
genetic vulnerability can be triggered by a social cue and on its own the theory is insufficient
46
Can it be applied to all types of crimes?
no mainly small crimes e.g. theft which is desirable
47
What does Eysenk's theory of criminal personality say?
That personality was determined by 3 dimensions
48
What were the different types of personality?
Extrovert - outgoing
Introverts - socially isolated
Neurotics - experience negative emotions
Stable
Psychoticism - aggressive and lack of empathy
49
What is the biological basis for the 3 personality types?
1Extraverts - need stimulation of arousal in the nervous system
2 Neurotics - increased activity in the sympathetic NS and flight or fight
3 Psychoticism - high levels of testosterone
50
How is extroversion and neuroticism and psychotiism linked to criminal behaviour?
All 3 seek high arousal
51
Research support from twin studies?
There was a high concrodance rate for neuroticism in MZ twins comapred to DZ but this could be due to the environment
52
Is personality consistent?
No people change in different situations and over time
53
Personality test may not be reliable?
Relied on self reports so would be biased
54
What does the bottom up approach by David Canter suggest?
profiling should be based on psychological theory and research
55
What are the stages of investigative psychology?
1Interpersonal coherance - people consistent in their behaviour so clues can be left
2 Forensic Awareness - certain behaviours showing awareness
Smallest space analysis - Data about the crime and characteristics are correlated
56
What was geographical profiling?
1 Circle theory - commit crimes within an imagined circle
2 Marauder- offender's home is within the circle
3 Commuter- travels to another location where a circle is drawn
4 CGT - computerised system shwoing a 3D map of spatial relation to time distance and movement from the crime scene
57
What is the scientific basis of this approach?
More scientific than top down approach because of its objectictive technique but only assumptions of the data are still made
58
Is it useful?
led to a police interest which said it was effective but it said it only helped identifying the offender not catching them
59