Turning to Crime Flashcards
Juby + Farringdon - Upbringing
Comparing delinquency rates.
> AIM to compare delinquency rates between boys (age 15) living in disrupted families and those living in intact families.
> SAMPLE 411 boys from 6 state schools in South London
> PROCEDURE prospective longitudinal study
- Data collected from parents and boys
- Juvenile convictions, self-reported juvenile delinquency and adult convictions.
- Participants interviewed and tested from ages 8-46
- Tests measured individual characteristics (personality, IQ)
- Annual interviews by psychiatric social workers from 8-15 years.
- Parents reported on family income, parenting practices and family situations
- Teachers completed questionnaires about boys aged 8-14 on topics such as truancy, aggressive behaviour and school behaviour.
> RESULTS Delinquency rates in disrupted families were all similar.
- Boys who lost their mothers were more likely to be delinquent than boys who lost their fathers
- Broken homes were more damaging than parental deaths
- Boys from disrupted families who continued living with their mothers had similar delinquency rates to boys from intact harmonious families.
> CONCLUSION Multiple stresses between and involved in separation explain the link between disrupted families and delinquency.
- Criminogenic = Likely to lead to crime
- Some disrupted families when the mother is a stable figure are no more criminogenic than intact families.
> EVALUATION Biased sample = only male
- Standardised procedure = interviews (qualitative data) but difficult to repeat due to social desirability bias.
- Ethical = participants asked for informed consent.
Weatherburn + Lind - Upbringing
Relationships between area (postcodes) and delinquency.
> AIM To study the relationship between economic stress, child neglect/abuse and juvenile crime in particular postcodes in NSW Australia.
> SAMPLE Content-analysis from records in 1991 - 1995
> PROCEDURE Poverty was measured by the % of households in the postcode with an economic stress level of under $16000.
- Eco and social stress was measured by % of single parent families and % of crowded households (eg more than 1.5 per bedroom)
- For each postcode the rates of reported child abuse and child neglect were recorded as well as number of court cases involving juveniles (who had been accused of property and violent offences.
> RESULTS Postcode areas with the highest levels of poverty tended to have significantly higher levels of parenting defectis such as child neglect.
- There was a STRONG POSITIVE relationship between level of child neglect and abuse in a postcode area and the level of juvenile participant crime in that postcode.
- Mixing with delinquent peers increases risk of delinquency.
- 51% of young people who were let out late at night in areas with high levels of juvenile crime
> CONCLUSION Postcodes in crime linked to poverty, single parent families, crowded housing, neglect and abuse.
- The occurrence of crime in a neighbourhood is a simple function of its level of economic stress.
- Increase police patrols
- Governments should introduce child and family support programmes.
> EVALUATION deterministic
- Suggesting risk factors
- means they are suggesting that people will offend if they have those factors in their lives (eg. poverty, single parents)
- this IGNORES free will
Sutherland’s “Differential Association Theory” - Upbringing
Steps :
- Criminial behaviour is LEARNED.
- Learned INTERACTION WITH OTHER PERSONS is a process of COMMUNICATION.
- Occurs within intimate SOCIAL GROUPS.
- Learning includes TECHNIQUES, DIRECTION OF MOTIVES, ATTITUDES, RATIONALISATIONS AND DRIVES.
- Motives and drives are learned from FAVOURABLE/UNFAVOURABLE definitions of LEGAL CODES.
- Delinquency occurs due to REPEATED CONTACT WITH CRIMINAL ACTIVITY and a lack of contact with NON-CRIMINAL ACTIVITY.
- Differential association may vary in FREQUENCY, DURATION, PRIORITY and INTENSITY.
- Process of LEARNING criminal behaviour involved all mechanisms involved in ANY other learning.
- Criminal behaviour is an EXPRESSION OF GENERAL NEEDS AND VALUES, it is not explained by those needs and values since non-criminal behaviour is an expresion of the same needs and values.
> EVALUATION
- Difficult to falsify sutherland’s study.
- Ignores the earliest studies biological factors.
- Highlights how important learning from others is in influencing our behaviour.
Sutherland’s “Differential Association Theory” - Upbringing
> BACKGROUND
Committing crime is little to do with nature but is a learned response through association with other people (specific attributes and the learning of criminal techniques)
- How exposed one is to criminal norms (eg. theft)
- Criminal behaviour is an expression of needs and values (eg. materialism)
-If a person acquires more unfavourable than favourable attributes then they will become a criminal.
- An individual may receive inadequate or inappropriate socialisation from parents and others.
- Criminals are not propelled towards a life of crime by their biology but rather learn inappropriate responses while growing up.
> CONCLUSION
- Social skills are a factor of determining the individual, affecting skills, attitudes and beliefs.
- Boys are more likely to become delinquent than girls - bedroom culture, role models etc.
- Role of rewards and punishments.
- People who become criminals are likely to have socialised with people / groups with some pro-criminal norms.
- Having criminal parents/friends increases the risk of engaging in criminal / anti-social behaviour.
- DAT accounts for how criminal behaviour is LEARNT but not for how a criminal lifestyle is maintained. You have to learn how to become a from others but this does not mean you will commit crimes.
> EVALUATION / COUNTER-ARGUMENT
- How can we measure the extent to which pro-criminals behaviour values must outnumber anti-criminal ones for the individuals to become a criminal.
- Doesn’t take individual differences into account in criminality which is why some people exposed to criminal behaviour and others don’t.
Gudjohnsson + Sigurdsson - Cognition
Relationship between motivation for offending and personal aspects.
> AIM To examine the relationship between motivation for offending and personality, anger problems and attitudes towards offending.
> SAMPLE - 128 male youths - ICELAND, aged 15-21 - discharged after a guilty plead (most property offences)
> PROCEDURE Self-report
- Participants had pleaded guilty
- Required to attend supervision sessions with a probation officer.
- Asked to take part in personality and offending study.
- Several psychological scales - eg The Eyeseck Personality Questionnaire.
- Scales measured: Eagerness to please, conflict avoidance, personality dimensions, cognitive, arousal, behavioural etc…
> RESULTS - 86% said offence was in company of others
- Highest mean scores for motivation were ‘excitement’ and ‘financial’ gains.
- 36% didn’t think they would get caught.
- 38% didn’t think there would be any consequences.
> CONCLUSION
- Peer pressured into crime (or to impress peers)
- Excitement had strongest overall relationship alongside other psychological measures
- Anger linked to offending motivation.
- AGNEWS STRAIN THEORY: ‘pressured into delinquency by strong negative reactions that arise’ (eg. anger)
> EVALUATION
- Biased sample - only young offenders - males - who committed minor offences > possible gender differences could not be investigated.
- Likely to be fewer confounding variables (age, gender, substance abuse and repeating offences)
Chen + Howitt - Cognition
Moral reasoning development
> AIM To examine moral reasoning development among young offenders.
> SAMPLE - 330 young male offenders, aged 12 - 18, Tawain
- Control group: 144 non-offenders.
> PROCEDURE - Snapshot, Self-report
- Completed questionnaire about criminal histories.
- Classified according to offence type: violent, sex, drugs related.
- Participants responded to a short form of the socio-moral reflection measure.
- The SRM-SF’s based on Kohlberg’s theory.
- Constitute of 5 moral values; contract and truth, affiliation, life, property and law, legal justice.
> RESULTS
Age correlated with moral reasoning development in control group but no correlation in offender groups.
- Amongst the offender groups, the drugs group had the highest moral reasoning.
- Moral reasoning development significantly higher than in any of the other groups.
> CONCLUSION
- Confirms previous findings that oral development is less advanced in offender groups than in non-offender controls.
- Less mature moral deevelopment is a risk factor for juvenile offending.
- Drug offenders high level of moreal reasoning deelopment was because they were all older
- Less likely to offend with a more advanced reasoning.
- Contract and truth most important to offenders.
> EVALUATION Usefulness - Tests a psychological measure developed in the US in a different cultural context - GENERALISABLE.
- Not ethnocentric because it allows cross-cultural comparison.
Kohlberg’s theory - Cognition
> AIM To find evidence in support of a progression through stages of moral development.
> SAMPLE - 58 WC and MC boys - Chicago - ages 7, 10, 13, 16.
> PROCEDURE - given a 2 hour interview with 10 dilemmas (like Heinz dilemma)
- Some of these boys followed up at 3 yearly intervals.
- Study repeated in 1969 in Uk, Mexico, Taiwan, USA and Yucatan (5 other countries)
> RESULTS
- Younger boys tended to perform at stages 1 and 2.
- Older boys at stage 3 and 4.
- Pattern consisted against cultures but progression slower in non-industrialised societies.
- No support found for stage 6.
> CONCLUSION Evidence supports idea of a stage theory.
> EVALUATION - Not a theory of crime but a theory of moral reasoning
- Theory on its own is not sufficient enough to support to explain criminal behaviour.
- High reliability : study repeated in 5 different countries - no ethnocentrism.
- Got a report from later studies - Palmer and Hiling.
Yochelson + Samenow - Cognition
Criminal thinking patterns
> AIM To describe thinking patterns of mentally ill offenders.
> SAMPLE - 225 male offenders - psychiatric hospital in America - being judged ‘not guilty’ on reason of insanity.
> PROCEDURE - Self-report - Interviews
> RESULTS - Criminals have quite distinct and erroneous thinking patterns that differ from non-criminals.
- Criminality is the result of choices made at an early age.
- They have a distorted self-image which results in criminal choices and denial of responsibility.
> CONCLUSION Study suggest criminals are not necessarily impulsive - they plan and fantasise about their actions and this needs to be treated.
> EVALUATION
- Y/S have a high success rate in getting offenders to accept that they have a criminal personality and changing their thinking patterns.
- Evidence shows that individuals may possess criminal behaviour.
- Can be used to stimulate other studies - Revent replication by Thornton and Reed with criminal samples have suggested that criminals committ crime for financial gain.
- Not representative as only boys were used and only for at a young age.
- Longitudinal study therefore a lot of information could be acquired over a long-period of time.
Raine + Lacasse - Biology
Brain dysfunction - insane offenders.
> AIM To identify areas of brain dysfunction in individuals charged with murder by reason of insanity.
> SAMPLE - 41 murders - 39 male, 2 female
Control group: 41 non-murderers } 6 schizos in each group.
> PROCEDURE Matched pairs design - Quasi
- Participants given an injection of a ‘tracer’
- They engaged in a performance task aiming to activate specific areas of the brain.
- Half-hour later PET scan conducted
- 10 slices of brain taken.
- MANOVA was conducted in order to compare PET scans of murderers with the controls.
> RESULTS Murderers pleading ‘not guilty’ by reason of insanity are characterised by:
- Reduced GLUCOSE metabolism in the PRE-FRONTAL CORTEX and in the CORPUS CALLOSUM.
- Abnormal asymmetries of activity in the AMYGDALA, HIPPOCAMPUS.
- No difference in mid-brain.
> CONCLUSION Study provides evidence that murderers have different brain functions to normal controls.
- Cannot conclude that criminals are born with different brains as it is possible that their brains have been affected by their experience (NATURE vs. NURTURE)
> EVALUATION - Low in VALIDITY due to use of brain scans.
- High in RELIABILITY as a review article can be carried out by anyone - Shown by Blakemore, Choudhury et al.
- However, some factors are hard to operationalise (such as poor parenting) therefore could question the results.
Brunner et al - Biology
Violence in genetically abnormal family
> AIM - A case study on a family who were affected by a syndrome of borderline mental retardation and abnormal violent behaviour.
> SAMPLE - 5 males, same family, Netherlands.
> PROCEDURE Data collected from analysis of urine samples of over a 24 hour period.
> RESULTS - Disturbed MONOAMINE metabolism associated with a deficit of the enzyme MONOAMINE OXIDASE A.
- Mutation was identified in the X chromosome of the gene responsible for the production MAOA.
> CONCLUSION - MAOA is involved in serotonin metabolism (breaks it down in the brain)
- Impaired metabolism of serotonin is likely to be responsible for mental retardation which could be linked to aggressive behaviour.
> EVALUATION - Sample size - small - unrepresentative
- High reliability due to use of scientific and objective measures which cannot interfere with results (urine samples)
- Not all the males in the family were affected even when suffering from mental retardation, therefore it could be said that there could be other causes of the aggressive behaviour.
- Extremely rare condition and hard to generalise and hard to come to the conclusion that it is the cause of criminal behaviour.
Caspi et al - Biology
Abused childhoods.
> AIM - To investigate the role of genotype in antisocial behaviours by individuals who had been maltreated in childhood.
> SAMPLE - 1037 children, 52% male, New Zealand.
> PROCEDURE - A polymorphism of the MAOA gene was tested in the birth of 1037 children from New Zealand.
- Had been assessed since birth to the age 30.
- Between 3-11 years, 8% had experienced severe maltreatment.
- 28% suffered probably maltreatment.
> RESULTS 12% of the ales who had low MAOA and maltreatment accounted for 44% of the cohorts violent convictions.
- Main reason for turning to crime = abuse.
- Interactions between abuse and MAOA was significant.
- Effect of childhood maltreatment on antisocial behaviour was significantly weaker amongst males with high MAOA than males with low.
- 85% males who had low MAOA had been severely maltreated developed some sort of anti-social behaviour.
> CONCLUSION - Excessive serotonin is an inherited abnormality.
- Implicated in aggressive and criminal behaviour.
- Combination of experience of abuse and MAOA abnormality that accounts for high levels of aggression.
- 2 Factors in antisocial behaviour and criminality.
LOW MAOA (nature) and MALTREATMENT IN CHILDREN (nurture)
- Functional polymorphism is in the MAOA gene, moderates
the impact of childhood maltreatment.
> EVALUATION - ETHICAL ISSUE: participants are probably given parental (blanket) consent without being informed of the details.
- Large sample size
- Ethnocentric bias.
Supporting Studies - Biology
> CHRISTIANSEN:
- 3586 twin pairs.
- Denmark
- 52% concordance rate from criminality was found in monozygotic twins.
- 22% concordance for dizygotic twins.
- If crime was a generic we would expect a 100% concordance rate for monozygotic twins as they share 100% of their genes.
> MEDNICK:
- 14,000 Danish adoptees.
- 20% of biological parents have criminal convictions.
- 14.7% of adoptive parents have a criminal conviction.
> PRICE:
- Males with an extra Y chromosome were more likely to commit violent crimes.
- Low intelligence accounts for their overrepresentation in prison population.
