A2 Forensic Psychology

Aims: To document the start, duration and end of offending behaviour from childhood to adulthood in families. To investigate the influence of life events; the risk and protective factors predicting offending and antisocial behaviour; the intergenerational transmission of offending and antisocial behaviour, and the influence of family background.

Design: Prospective, longitudinal survey. Interviews at age 8/9 and 48, as well as criminal record searches.

Participants: 411 East London boys aged 8/9, predominantly white working class.

Results: A small proportion (7%) of males were 'chronic offenders' who accounted for about half of all recorded crimes. Self-report showed that 93% had commited a crime at some stage even they were not reported to the police. 161 had official convictions at age 48. The proportion of men leading successful lives (6/9 of the criteria of life success) increased with age.

Conclusion: Offenders tend to be deviant in many aspects of their lives. Early prevention to reduce offending could have wide-ranging benefits with accommodation, relationships, employment, alcohol, drugs and aggressive behaviour.

Aim: Aimed to find out the importance of external and internal features in facial recognition.

Sample: 15 male/15 female aged 18-60

Method: 3 related experiments, shown target photos of 10 celebs and had to match the correct composite image to the celebrity from 40 composites. Group 1 saw complete composites, Group 2 saw internal feature composites only and Group 3 saw external feature composites only. Participants were tested individually and randomly assigned one of three groups.

Key findings: Whole composites and external features were matched best (33%). Internal features were matched correctly 19.5% of the time (more or less chance level)

Conclusions: External composites are surprisngly more effective when identifying a face then internal features. Seeing the holisitic composite was also found to be easier and more effective in identifying people. We can apply these findings to the questioning of witnesses by the police because we can tell the witness to identify the person/suspect tell them to focus on the external composites. They are far more likely to remember hair

Aim: Aimed to see if memory could be influenced by scenes and subjective bias and that memory is reconstructive and can be changed in particular by a weapon's presense. Sample: 1st experiment = 36 university students in total, 2nd experiment = 80 participants. Method:  Lab experiment

Procedure: 1st experiment = 18/36 saw a customer point a gun at the cashier, while the other group saw him handing in a check. 2nd experiment = were shown the same slides, half saw the check and the other the weapon version

Key findings: 1st experiment: The weapon group were less accurate in picking the perp out of a 12 person photo lineup. 2nd experiment: the weapon group were worse at answering questions about the perp.

Conc: People are less likely to be able to identify,accurately, a suspect of crime when there is a weapon/object of difference in use.

Aim: To compare the performance of experienced detectives, pre- and post-training, in cognitive interviewing techniques and to compare their performance post-training with a control group.

Method: A field experiment with repeated and independent measures

Samples: 16 experienced detectives in Florida (7/16 completed the cognitive interviewing course), and 9 untrained controls

Results: Comparison pre- and post-training. 47% more info was recorded in the post-training interviews and 6/7 detectives in this group did better post-training. Comparison of trained group and control group. 63% more info recorded in the interviews conducted by trained detectives.

Conc: These results clearly show the effectiveness of the cognitive interviewing technique over traditional interviewing methods and it could also be suggested that this training is relatively easy to provide.

Aim: To find out the behavioural features that demonstrate lying and test if liars show the commonly believed signs of deception such as gaze aversion and fidgeting.

Method: Observational Study short video clips (16-67secs) of a murderer's interrogation were coded by 2 independent observers (seperately). The IV was whether the videotaped extracts were true or false. The DV's were the 12 behaviours coded, a few examples of this are; Gaze aversion,'ah' disturbances and non'ah' disturbances .

Findings: The suspect showed similar decptive behaviour when lying befor and during the confession with the exception of gaze aversion. No evidence at was found for the widespread belief that people fidget when they are lying.

Conclusions: Common behavioural characteristics of lying (both before and during confession) which included the murderer displaying longer pauses, speaking more slowly and making more 'non-ah' speech disturbances than when he was telling the truth.

1. Direct Confrontation - telling the suspect that they are guilty

2.Chance to shift blame (either to some else or circumstances) - showing sympathy and offering the option to blame others

3. Never allow the suspect to deny guilt - always interrupt suspects when they try to claim they are innocent.

4.Ignore excuses - Ignore the reasons and push for a confession

5.Reinforce sincerity,eye contact, first names

6.If suspect cries, infer guilt

7.Pose the 'alternative question' - give two choices, one more socially acceptable, but both inferring guilt

8. Get the suspect to admit guilt in front of the witnesses

9. Get a confession signed

Aim: to document a case of false confession of a youth who was at the time distressed and susceptible to interrogative pressure

Method: A case study of a 17 year old youth who was accused of 2 murderers.

Procedure: There was no forensic evidence to link him to the case. During the interview he was repeatedly accused of lying, the questioning was leading and accusatory and the police suggested he was sexually impotent. After 14 hours of questioning without a break he confessed. He retracted his confession the next day, only to confess again later. In prison he was assessed by psychiatrists who found no evidence of mental illness, an IQ of 94 and a score of 10 - very high- on the Gudjohnsson Suggestibility Scale.

Conc: This is a clear case of 'coerced compliant false confession'. He gave in to pressure to escape from the interview situation.

Describes 4 main stages that are used by the FBI-

1. Profiling inputs - police reports, evidence from the crime scene, forensic evidence, background of the victim.

2. Homicide type and style - no of victims, type of victims, location.

3. Crime assessment - How did the offender and the victim behave? During this stage a reconstruction may be helpful.

4.The actual criminal profile - the profile from which police can target likely suspects

FBI approach is based on interviews with 36 serial murderers who had committed sexually orientated crimes. From this interviews they were able to categorise the murderers as either 'organised' or 'disorganised'. (Hazelwood). This is referred to as Typology.

Organised offenders show evidence of planning, they target the victim and have tried to control the situation as nuch as possible. Disorgainsed tend to be socially inadequate, may know the crime scene or the victim and live alone.

Canter has labelled his approach 'investigative psychology'

Canter + Heritage - studied 66 sexual assault cases which had been committed by some 27 different offenders. They identified 33 offence characteristics that appeared with some frequency. He developed statistial correlations between these different behaviours. Thse statistical correlations can be plotted on graph to show how different types of actions are related or unrelated. (Smallest Space Analysis). Canter's approach is also known as Geographical Profiling. It focuses on the internal mental maps that offenders will have and how they have significance for the understanding of their crimes. From this he developed the Circle Theory of Environmental Range. This suggests that it is possible to obtain info about an offenders home location by the study of their offence location. In one study, Canter found that when he drew a circle around all of the offender's crimes in over 85% of cases, the offender lived within that circle

Between 1982-86, 24 sexual assaults occured in North London near to railways. Between 1985-6 three murders occured. and forensic evidence together with certain aspects of the perp's Modus Operandi suggested that there were links between ****s and murders. When Canter joined he complied his profile by analysing the detail of the offences. The offender had been 1,505th on a list of 2,000 suspects before the profile. Canter found that the ****s turned to mruder because Duffy was almost recognised by a victim when in court for assaulting his wife.  Duffy was also well aware of procedures for forensic evidence back from when they searched his house for evidence ****. However, when Canter fed all the info he had collected into the profile only one suspect came up  and that was John Duffy.

1. Criminal behaviour is learned.

2. Criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication.

3. The principal part of the learning of criminal behaviour occurs within intimate personal groups.

4. A criminal has to learn the techniques of the trade from someone, he also learns the attitudes taken and excuses made for behaving in a criminal fashion.

5. Groups of people may see certain laws as pointless or discriminatory and therefore feel they can flaunt them or that it is ok to break them, for example underage drinking laws (favourable/unfavourable laws).

6. The principle of differential association: individuals become criminal due to repeated contacts with criminal activity and a lack of contact with non-criminal activity.

7. Differential association (number of contacts with criminals over non-criminals) may vary in frequency, duration, priority and intensity.

8. Criminal behaviour is learned like any other behaviour.

9. While criminal behaviour is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those general needs and values, since non-criminal behaviour is an expression of the same needs and values.

Aims: To understand the make-up of the criminal personality, to establish techniques that could be used to alter the personality disorders that produce crime, to encourage an understanding of legal responsibility, to establish techniques that can be effective in preventing criminal behaviour.

Participants: 255 male participants from various backgrounds, from the mental hospital that Yochelson and Samenow worked at, who had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. No control group.

Methodology: A series of interviews over several years.

Selected findings: Criminals are restless, dissatisfied and irritable. While at school, they considered requests from their teachers and parents as impositions, they are habitually angry and lack empathy and they are poor at responsible decision-making. Most dropped out; only 30 completed the programme and 9 changed as a result.

Conclusion: 52 thinking patterns: "errors" in thinking supposedly unique to criminals but wasn't compared to a control group.

52 thinking patterns included: wanting to live a life of excitement, at any cost, being habitually angry as a way of life, lacking empathy and feeling under no obligation to anyone or anything except their own interests.

Aim: To find evidence in support of a progression through stages of moral development.

Participants: 1963; based on 58 boys from Chicago, aged 7, 10, 13 and 16.

Methodology: Each boy had a two hour interview with dilemmas to solve e.g. Heinz dilemma. Some boys followed up at 3 yearly interviews. Study replicated in other countries.

Results: Younger boys performed at stages 1 and 2 but older boys were at stages 3 and 4 showing support for development through the stages. No support was found for stage 6.

Conclusions: Support for the stages, and recent replications with criminal samples support this also.

Level 1 (Pre-conventional morality): Stages 1 and 2

Level 2 (Conventional morality): Stages 3 and 4

Level 3 (Post-conventional morality): Stages 5 and 6

Aim: To explain the behaviour of a large family in the Netherlands where the males are affected by a syndrome of borderline mental retardation and abnormal violent behaviour.

Participants: Five affected males from the family.

Methodology: Data were collected from analysis of urine sample over a 24 hour period.

Results: In each of the males a point mutation was identified in the X chromosome of the gene responsible for production of MAOA.

Conclusion: MAOA is involved in serotonin metabolism. A lack of serotonin can lead to the inability to regulate aggression and anger.

A defect in your genes can affect the production of neurotransmitters such as serotonin. Serotonin controls anger and aggression and if there is too much serotonin in your body it could lead to impulsiveness and may predispose men to violence which could account for criminal behaviour displayed especially under high stess. 

Aim: To examine whether there is a primacy effect or a recency effect in relation to witness testimony.

Methodology: A simulated courtroom procedure. This is an experimental design with independent measures.

Participants: 192 undergraduate students eligible for jury service in the UK.

Procedure: Some participants heard witnesses give guilty testimonies first and others heard witnesses give innocent testimony first. Overall, each participants was exposed to exactly the same material but in a different order.

Results: The group that heard the guilty witnesses first produced more guilty verdicts than the other group. They were also more confident in their judgements. This suggests strong primary effects in courtroom decision-making.

Aim: To investigate the influence that expert witnesses can have on jury decision making.

Method: Lab experiment, using independent measures design.

Sample: 120 students from Washington University

Findings: much higher conviction rate in the 'no expert testimony' group. This shows that the expert testimony makes jurors more sceptical about using eyewitness testimony to convict a suspect. 

Loftus' research tells us that if expert psychologists come to explain the crime and accuracy of the evidence, jurors are more sceptical about using eyewitness testimonies and generally tend not to believe them. This means that if an expert psychologist is used, people are more likely to be persuaded into voting acquittal compared to if there wasn't an expert witness.

Children learn social behaviour such as aggression through the process of observational learning - through watching the behaviour of another person.

Farrington suggests that there is a higher chance of a person turning to crime if they are from a convicted family. Using Social Learning Theory, if a child is brought up in a family where the father is involved in crime and also the elder sibling then through observation and modelling, that child will go on to get convicted or be involved in crime, especially if the older sibling was involved in crime.

Reductionist and determinstic - reductionist as it does not take anything else into account and deterministic as it is basically saying that if you are brought up in a convicted family then you will more than likely also turn to crime :) 

ACOP = Association of Chief Officers of Probation 

Aim: aimed to see if there was a connection between Poverty & Disadvantaged neighbourhoods and people turning to crime.

Sample: 1,389 young people on probation schemes. 

Method: Self-report 

Findings: they found that 72% were in poverty and more than 2/3's of the 17 year olds surveyed had 'no reliable income' Educational qualifications were equally sparse, with 98% of the group having left school as early as possible and the 'vast majority' of 17 year olds were...neither in work nor attending training. Those interviewed tended to leave home at 'a very early age' , normally 16, sometimes after sexual abuse. Alcohol and drugs were also critical in turning people to crime, with probation officers citing addiction or compulsion as a key factor with 34%. The researchers concluded that there was a 'real link between poverty and crime'. 

Conc: ACOP suggests that people who are from poor areas and suffer from poverty are more likely to turn to crime as a way of gaining some financial stability for their family. 

sample: 126 convicted offenders in the Young Offenders Institution and at Magistrates' court . They were mainly accused of Burglary and car theft. A comparison group of 122 males and 210 females non-offenders and they were all from Midlands (aged 13-22(.

Method: Self-report, they were given Socio-Moral Reflection Measure-Short Form which contained 11 moral dilemma-related questions. They were also given The Self report Delinquency Checklist which examined whether the differences in moral reasoning was shown in actual offending behaviour. 

Finding: The SRD checklist showed that the delinquent group had offended significantly more than the control group. The SRM-SF scale found the delinquent group showed less mature moral reasoning than the non-delinquent group. Male offenders had the least mature moral reasoning and were mainly operating at Kohlberg's pre-conventional level. 

Conc: Criminals can be explained through morality levels. A criminal is more likely to have low levels on morals as they are fending for themselves and so laws don't come into their minds. That if they have fairly high morals it would probably be that they feel they don't need to steal to feed their families.

Proposed 5 techniques of neutralization that allow criminals to deny their actions are wrong or harmful. These relate to social cognition as they are a form of external attribution:

1. Denial of responisbility - e.g. blaming upbringing, if you use the example of a ******, they would blame it on their negative upbringing for example, being ***** at an early age.

2. Denial of injury to victim, they deny that what they did didn't bring any harm to them

3. Denial of victim - e.g. victim deserves it, they'd judge the victims appearence or clothing - like , for example, she dressed in a small top with chest out and so she asked for it

4. Condemnation of condemners - e.g. critical of criminal justice system, Don't think it's fair that rich get to be rich and so claim revenge. They might think that sex isn't against the law

5. Appeal to higher loyalties - e.g. peers, they may say 'oh well others do it' or 'my mates told me to do it'

Interviewed 8 offenders who had committed 'hate crimes' against the Amish community in America. They found 38 neutralisations including the technqiues of neutralisation proposed by Sykes & Matza:

- Denial of responsibility (10.5% of neutralisations) 'The harassement was almost common nature' 

- Denial of injury (31.5%)

- Denial of victim (23.7%): 'I always thought they were of lesser intelligence'

Why might the cognitions of criminals be affected by their social group?

- If they are with social groups then they may say ' well they were doing it so why not me?' It just gives them an excuse to do crime

- Also people who use external attribution are more likely to turn to crime and commit crime

Method: Used PET scans to examine the brains of 

Sample: 41 people (39 males and 2 females) who were charged with murder and were pleading NGRI and compared them with 41 controls. 

Highly controlled, no confounding variables as both the sample and the control group were kept medication free.

Results: The results showed that compared to the controls, the NGRIs were found to have less activity in their prefrontal area of the brain. They found less activity in the corpus callosum. They also found to have differences in the functioning of the amygdala (NGRIs had less activity in the left side and more activity in the right side.

Brain dysfunction can explain criminality because if your prefrontal cortex has been impaired then the limbec system might be damaged. The limbec system consists of emotion, impulse and empathy, so if these are damaged you could kill someone suddenly for no reason and not feel anything for that person. Raine suggests that Brain Dysfunction, such as low levels of activity in the prefrontal cortex,corpus callosum and amygdala, may affect behaviour such as loss of self control, high impulsivity, altered emotionality ( such as lack of fear, empathy) and an inability to grasp the long term consequences of a situation. This could result in a person turning to crime

Measured testosterone in the saliva of 89 American male prison inmates. Inmates with higher testosterone concentrations had more often been convicted of violent crimes. The relationship was most striking at the extremes of the testosterone distribution, where 9/11 inmates with the lowest testosterone concentrations had committed nonviolent crimes, and 10/11 inmates with the highest testosterone concentrations had committed violent crimes. Among the inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes, those higher in testosterone recieved longer times to serve before parole and longer punishments for disciplinary infractions in prison. 

Gender can be used to explain criminality by stating that males have higher levels of testorone than females. This makes them more likely to be aggressive and violent which makes them more likely to commit crime.

Bowlby believed that a child should experience a warm, loving continous relationships with a maternal figure. If the child suffers a prelonged period of maternal deprivation during the first 5 years of life, according to Bowlby, it would have irreversible negative effects, resulting in a cold affectionless character - a delinquent. This follows a psychodynamic perspective. 

Aim: investigate the effect of instructions to disregard inadmissable evidence on jurors' judgement.

Sample: 236 psychology students who participated as part of their course requirement

Method: Mock trial - lab experiment and also self report (questionnaire)

Findings: Guilty: Admissible: 64%, inadmissible with legal explanation: 55%, inadmissible without legal explanation: 43% and control group: 42%

Conc: whilst it does seem possible for juries to ignore inadmissible evidence by calling attention to inadmissible evidence, it makes it more important to the jury and they pay more attention to it. 

Pickels research tells psychologists that whilst they may ignore evidence that is ruled as inadmissible they can't forget the evidence and in some cases it may bring more attention to the juror and so the inadmissible evidence may still effect the cause if it has not been legally explained. Research shows that you can disregard data that is inadmissible.

Aim: To test the hypothesis that the attractive defendant is less likely to be seen as guilty.

Sample: 145 psychology students - self selected

Method: Lab experiment

Findings: The results show that when the defendant was attractive, guilty verdicts were found 56% of the time against 76% for an unattractive defendant. It can be concluded that physical attractiveness does have an impact on the way a jury views defendants.

Castellow's research tells psychologists that if a defendant is physically attractive they are more likely to get a more lenient sentence than if an unattractive person. 

Aim: to examine several factors that jurors might consider when evaluating eyewitness identification evidence, one of the factors was witness confidence. 

Method: Mock trial, independent measures design. 10 independent variables

Samples: students and experienced jurors.

Findings: P + C found that when the witness was 100% confident, the conviction rate was 67% compared to 60% when the witness was 80%. This highlights that the more confident a witness is, the more likely the jury are to believe them.

Aim: aimed to find out if the use of protective shields and videotaped testimony increases the likelihood of a guilty verdict, also whether the use of shields affects the credibility of the witness or defendants.

Sample: 300 psychologist students 

Method: mock trial based on a real court transcript. The judge also read a warning not to imply guilt by their use. 

Findings: Showed no significant difference between the 3 conditions when giving their verdict. 58.6% of females found the defendant guilty, compared to just 38.6% of males. There was also no difference across the 3 conditions for credibility. This study suggests that when judge's warnings are given there is no disadvantage to the defendant in the use of protective shields and videotape during witness testimonies. 

Ross' research shows that whilst having a child give their evidence through shields and videotape might have an effect, if a judge warns them not to imply guilt then the jurors don't let it effect them. 

They apply findings from social psychological research of group dynamics to the jury, as real juries cannot studied. According to Hastie et al jury discussion goes through the following stages:

Orientation Period (getting to know eachother) - Relaxed & open discussion, set the agenda, raise questions and explore facts and different opinions arise

Open Confrontation (arguement): Fierce debate, Focus on detail, explore different interpretations, pressure on the minority to conform, support for the group deicision is established

Recouncilitation (make up): Attempts to smooth over conflicts and tension is released through humour. 

Hastie tells psychologists that jurors go through three stages whereby they get to know each other, they debate their ideas as different opinions arise they fiercely argue until the support for the group decision is established and tension is released through humour.

Aim: to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could influence a person to conform. 

Method: Lab experiment to study conformity

Sample: 123 participants 

Findings: In 12/18 trials, the 7 confederates gave the wrong answer. Asch found that about one third (37%) of the participants who were placed in this situation went along and conformed with the majority who were clearly incorrect.

Conclusions: Asch suggested that people conform for two main reasons: because they want to fit in with the group (normative influence) and because they believe the group is better informed than they are (informational influence).

Aim: To see whether a consistent minority of participants could influence a majority to give an incorrect answer in a simple colour perception test.

Sample: 172 females (all with good eye sight, none were colour blind) were placed in groups of 6 (4 real participants and 2 confederates). There was also a control group with no confederates. 

Findings: show that in the control group 0.25% answered green, compared to 1.25% in the inconsistent minority condition, and with 8.42% in the consistent minority condition (32% of participants in the consistent condition reported a green slide at least once.) 

Moscovici concludes that minorities can influence majorities. However, it indicates that this influence is much more effective when the minority are consistent in their response. When the minority gave inconsistent answers they were largely ignored by the majority.

For example, in a courtroom jury, if the minority consistency say that the suspect is guilty then the majority may be influenced into believing this verdict.

Aim: To investigate the effect on reconviction rates of a community based employment scheme. 

Method: Content analysis of data from Canada's Offender Management System on 23,525 offenders conditionally released between Jan 1998 and Jan 2005, of which 95% were men and the rest women. A matched pairs design.

Findings: Those on employment programmes prior to finishing their sentence were more likely to remain on conditional release and less likely to return to custody. At the end of the study period 70% of the employed group remained on conditional release compared to 55% of the unemployed group. 

Conclusions: People on a job programme are less likely to reoffend as they have a better attitude towards not offending and have a better attitude towards not offending and have a high percieved control to not offend. 

Aim: To investigate the suicide morality of men in English and Welsh prisons between 1978 and 2003.

Method: It compares the 1312 male suicides recorded in prison in england and wales between 1978-2003 with the suicide rate for men of comparable age in the general pop.

Results: It found that men are 5.1 times more likely to kill themselves in prison than in the general population. Young men, between 15-17, were 18 times more likely to commit suicide.

Conc: If you are in imprisoned, you are more likely to become distressed and depressed and so commit suicide in comparison to someone outside of prison in the general public.

Overcrowding causes stress because it increases the number of interactions in a confined space that the prisoner must deal with and so they become frustrated and irritated which generates stress.

There are more suicides amongst prisoners in remand because they have been in probably an overcrowded place for too long and the irritation is builing alongside the depression of thinking  that you might not get out of prison.

Aim: examined the effects of roles within a prison and the prison situation itself. 

Sample: 24 students were selected out of 75 to take on the roles of either prisoners or guards.

Was supposed to last 14 days however finished after 6 due to highly unethical standards.

1. Rise of supermax prisons, ultra secure, long term segregated confinement

2. moved away from rehab of prisoners more to a policy of incapacitation and containment

3. Prison pop in US has grown drastically, up to 2 million.

Zimbaro's stanford prison experiment is considered useful as it has made the CJS more controlled better. It could be considered unuseful as the US have put more prisoners in prison than any other nation and so it clearyl isn't working.

Aim: To investigate the experiences of offenders on probation orders in a cross section of offices in England and Wales.

Method: A Survey using a questionnaire

Sample: 3299 offenders selected at random from 22 probation offices across E + W to be representative of all crimes and age groups.

Findings: 88% of the sample felt probation was extremely or very useful. Over 60% of the sample felt that the probation officer would help them to sort out problems and was there to talk but only 37% felt it would stop them re-offending.

In conclusion, most offenders find probation to be useful, however a small percentage feel that it would stop re-offending altogether. It is also good at helping at offenders re-adjust to life.

Method: Review article. looked at 36 studies in all from aussie, NZ, US, UK and Canada- which measured the effectiveness of restorative justice processes,