criminal psychology

defining principles: The biological approach believes us to be as a consequence of our genetics and physiology. It is the only approach in psychology that examines thoughts, feelings, and behaviors from a biological and thus physical point of view. Therefore, all that is psychological is first physiological. All thoughts, feeling & behaviour ultimately have a biological cause.

A biological perspective is relevant to the study of psychology in three ways: 1. comparitive methd, 2. Physiology, 3. investigation of inheritance

how study relates to the area

application

A To see of offenders who commit murder and plead NGRI have localised brain disfunction

 P 41 murderers (pleading ngri for man - slaughter or murder), 39m 2f - no medication for 2 weeks. 6 had scizophrenia

P continuous performance task then PET scan

 F no differences in performance in task, significant differences in brain metabolism. compared to controls, NGRIs had more activity in occipital areas, amygdala and hippocampus and less in corpus collosum

C Experimental group had low levels of of glucose metabolism in the lateral and medial pre-frontal cortex - lead to less self-control. Evidence for ‘multi site deficits’ in those who plead NGRI - support for pre-existing biological factors.

Physiological reasons: Nutrition as a child, Education, Neighbourhood, Sensible role models, Traumatic experiences, Economic status. Non-physiological reasons: Genetics, Not having the capability to know when right and wrong, Testosterone levels, Mental illness, Radicalisation. Background: brunner - MAMO gene, farrington and west - boys being criminals

link to area biology:

application:

s+w:Very Scientific,Highly application to other areas: Biology + Cog = Evolutionary Psy, Helped develop comparative psychology, Strong counter argument to the nurture side of the debate, Many empirical studies to support theories

Experiments – Low Ecological Validity, Humanism: too deterministic – little room for free-will, Doesn’t recognize cognitive processes, Reductionist, Bio psychological theories often over-simplify the huge complexity of physical systems and their interaction with the environment.

A Can finger print analysists identify the murderer or fraudster due to the written report given

P 70 volunteer fingerprint experts (mean experience = 11 years)

P field. Either murder (high emotional context) or fauged a £50 note (low). Students were told details of the case and any suspects. they identified a match, not or not enough detail with elaborations and a questionairre on whether they referred to the report

F  57/70 read the report, 30 were in the murder case. 52% of 30 who did the murder case felt it had influenced their decision compared to 6% in the low ecological context.

C this study suggests emotional contect did not detract from the fingerprint experts' capacity to make a final decision.

Dror 06; 5pps, Brandon Mayfield. definite match 5 years before wrongly convivted by FBI. 20% agreed with original result. 80% contradicted.

Motivating and bias facotr in collecting and processing evidence; high profile case; emotional attachment; current suspect; evidence left behind; human error can lead to mistakes; not fully trained.

defining principles: Cognitive psychology refers to the study of human mental processes and their role in thinking, feeling, and behaving. Cognitive psychology focuses on the way humans process information, they are interested in the variables that mediate between stimulus/input and response/output. Cognitive psychologists study internal processes including perception, attention, language, memory and thinking. The cognitive perspective applies a nomothetic approach to discover human cognitive processes. Cognitive psychology is also a reductionist approach. This means that all behaviour, no matter how complex can be reduced to simple cognitive processes, like memory or perception.

how relates

application

a to review research into the cognitive area.

p 4 clear themes were identified - effectiveness of components/quality of training/ use of comparison/measures of memory performance

p conclusions were drawn from a range of literature which would benefit researcher investigating the cognitive interview or to give advice to the police when using the cognitive interview

f when using the CI, context reinstatement is the most effective aspect of the CI e.g. milne (97) found the context reinstatement alone resulted in as much info from witness as the CI as a whole. when giving training, the CI should be done by the police rather than a psychologist e.g. m + h found poor questionning due to resistance of the police as they viewed the trainer as an 'outsider'

c reseacher has been used to give advice to police using the cognitive interview and researchers investigating the CI

 Police should be trained by psychologists in these techniques. Gets the most out of a suspect or a witness as they will feel under less pressure. background: dror - 9 step CI

Strengths and weaknesses;

Scientific, Highly applicable (e.g. therapy, EWT), Combines easily with approaches: behaviorism + Cog = Social Learning Biology + Cog = Evolutionary Psy, Many empirical studies to support theories Ignores biology (e.g. testosterone), Experiments - low ecological validity, Humanism - rejects scientific method, Behaviorism - can’t objectively study unobservable behavior, Introspection is subjective, Machine reductionism

how relates

application

A whether race, accent or type of crime affected how guilty they were perceived.

P 119 undergrad students (24m, 95 f) pps from birmingham were excluded.

P pps listened to a 2 min conversation. suspect played by a 'natural code switcher'. crime was changed in the conversation and crime was noted in the transcript.

F Found that the brummie accent was found to be more guilty than those speaking in RP for black collared crimes. Suspects that were perceived to be black, blue-collar and have a brummie accent were found more guilty than any other combination.

C many personal factors of the suspect can affect how guilty ther are judged to be.

characteristics of the witness and defendant; Dress sense, Tattoos, Piercings, Accent, Title (dr/mrs), Stereotypes, Cleanliness

Strategy Longer jury training or professional juries in the courtroom. This would stop the influences of stereotypes on ury decisions. Also allow there to be a jury that understands all of the info given to them by the court to make a decision based on facts alone and not the influences of the courtroom background: penrod and cutler -  witness confidence, sigall and ostrove - attractiveness

Defining principles; Social psychology is about understanding individual behaviours in a social context. The social assumes that behaviour is the result of other people's influence and the social context to this. Social psychologists therefore deal with the factors that lead us to behave in a given way in the presence of others, and look at the conditions under which certain behavior/actions and feelings occur. Social psychology is to do with the way these feelings, thoughts, beliefs, intentions and goals are constructed and how such psychological factors, in turn, influence our interactions with others. Topics examined in social psychology include: the self concept, social cognition, attribution theory, social influence, group processes, prejudice and discrimination, interpersonal processes, aggression, attitudes and stereotypes.

How the study relates to the area; The Wilson and Kelling article review links to the social area because it shows how people will act/ behave when violence and aggression is present depending on the environment they're in' have grown up in. For example Zimbardo's study with the 2 cars; the one in the rough neighbourhood was vandalised immediatly, whereas the car in the upper class neighbourhood was only vandalised after the car looked in a bad state. 

Application;  

a to provide evidence to support broken windows theory which suggests that if a window is broken in a neighbourhood, crime will escalate inm that area

p zimbardo compared palo alto and the bronx. wilson and kelling conducted research in Newark

p zimbado's research was part of wilson and kellings review - he left a car in the in an up market area, it wan't until he broke a window in the car 1 week later that it was vandalised. wilson and kelling conducted their own case study in newark in which they observed foot patrols and drew conclusions about how best to prevent crime

f it is best to focus limited police resources on neighbourhoods that are at tipping point rather than those who are already high in crime. although increased foot patrols will not directly reduce crime in a given area, questionairres revealed that they will reduce fear of crime is being dealt with effectively

c zero tolerance is oine practical method to deal with BWT in which you crack down on low level crime to prevent escalation 

Zero tolerance newman van dyke and brownsville Broken windows theory zimbado 2 cars Defensible space; Milieu,Image, Opportunity of surveillance, Zone of territoriality 

Strengths and weaknesses of social area; Strengths;Scientific, Emphasizes objective measurement, Many experiments to support theories. Weaknesses; Ignores biology (e.g. testosterone),Underestimates individual differences, Provides only 'superficial snapshots of social processes' (Hayes, 1995)

how study relates; The Haney study relates to the social area because it shows how 

application;

A individual or situational behaviour made them act like that

P 22 male pps allocated randomly for $15 a day.

P Guards were told not to use physical violence but some went out of their way to dehumanise and embarrass the prisoners. Prisoners were arrested realistically and publically, stripped naked (no underwear), referred to as a number and had to clean toilets with their bare hands.

F Prisoners showed signs of rage, depression, breakdowns and the experiment had to be stopped after 6 days instead of 2 weeks. They were paid $15 a day. Some guards acted worse than others showing it wasn’t purely the person or situation at fault, it was a combination of both.

C social roles can influence behaviour. structure and environment of the 'prison' cause some guards to be brutal towards prisoners - authority.

59% of criminals re-offend within the first year of release- background CALM island 2000

Strategies to reduce re-offending; Restorative justice; Electronic tagging; Probations; Anger management; Community service; Death penalty; Fines.