Forensic psychology

Crime - any behaviour that is unlawful and punished by the state. It is an act that is harmful to an individual, group or society as a whole.

Social construct - understanding of what is a crime is decided by what culture/country we are in.

What is considered a crime in one culture/country, is not necessarily a crime in another.

Official statistics - data is gathered from several sources by the Office of National Statistics on the amount of crime committed in England and Wales. It is published every year to show headline figures and trends in the types of crime recorded.

Evaluation:

- Dark figure of crime - hidden figures. Many crimes are not reported to the police, leading to a serious under-estimation of the amount of crime committed, suggesting this measure is not valid. There might not be much evidence or they don't want a stigma.

Victim surveys - the Crime Survey for England and Wales conducts annual face-to-face surveys with around 40,000 people of different ages asking about their experiences of specific crimes. This is used to track the total amount of crime and changes in trends of crime.

Evaluation:

- Self-report - may lack reliability as people may give socially desirable responses; not honest.

Offender Surveys - the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey 2006 gathered longitudinal self-report data on offending behaviour over a 3 year period. This aims to collect data of otherwise unreported crime.

Evaluation:

- Are offenders going to be honest - not necessarily be honest; they may not confess or they confess to other crimes. This lacks reliability.

Offender profiling - a method of working out the characteristics of an offender by examining the characteristics of the crime and crime scene.

It can only be used with certain types of crime; murder, sexual, arson.

It does not tell you who committed a crime; it helps you to understand the type of person who has committed the crime. It may also help to identify if certain crimes are linked and carried out by the same person.

Top-down approach - an analysis of previous crimes creates a profile of a likely offender. A profiler uses this knowledge to narrow the field of possible suspects. Unlike the bottom-up approach, it relies on the intuition and beliefs of the profiler.

It was developed by the FBI in America in the 1980s. It was developed by interviewing some of the most notorious killers in prison at the time.

Organised offender: 

• Leads an orderly life and kills/attacks after a critical event.
• Planning and control are evident from the crime scene analysis.
• Likely to be of average or higher intelligence.
• Likely to be employed in a skilled job.
• Know who, where and when.
• Controlled.

Disorganised offender:

• Likely to have committed the crime in a moment of passion.
• No evidence of pre-planning.
• Likely to be of below average intelligence.
• Not socially competent and probably lives alone.
• Poor work history.
• Uncontrolled.
• Chaotic crime scene.
• Improvisation for weapon.

1. Profiling inputs: data collected on the crime scene, background info on the victim and details of the crime itself.

2. Decision process models: the profiler starts to organise the data into meaningful patterns. Murder type - mass murder, spree or serial? Time factors - did the crime take a long time, short time? Night or day? Location factors - was the crime scene the same as the murder scene?

3. Crime assessment: crime and type of offender is classified as organised or disorganised.

4. Criminal profile: hypotheses are constructed about the background, habits and beliefs of offender, this informs the investigation.

5. Crime assessment: written report is given to the investigation agency and persons matching the profile are evaluated.

6. Apprehension: if suspect is arrested, the profile-generating process is reviewed and checked for validity.

+ Ecological validity - the method was developed by the FBI who use it to help identify perpetrators. This means it has ecological valdity as it arose out of actual practice.

- Not scientific - it is not scientific as it lacks clear theoretical basis, and is difficult to test as it relies on the subjective interpretation of the crime scene and the unique experience of the profiler.

- Canter - tested the organised/disorganised typology and found no evidence that crime can be categorised in this way as all crimes contained elements of both topologies. Instead, it would be better to investigate personality differences between offenders.

David Canter was a well respected psychologist who had conducted a lot of work into fires and emergency situations. He had successfully used psychological theories to explain how people behaved in emergency situations.

Bottom-up approach: a data-driven approach where statistical techniques are used to produce predictions about the likely characteristics of an offender.

Canter reviewed 100 cases of serial killers in the US. He found that there was no correlation between the details of the crime scene and the characteristics of the offender. Canter developed his bottom-up approach to profiling from his work on the Railway ****** case. There had been a series of brutal ****s and murders carried out near railway tracks in the 1980s. Police were struggling with the case. Canter read about the case in the newspapers and decided to use psychological theories to try and understand the case. Canter then used information from witness statements and crime scenes evidence to put together a picture of the attacker. The profile suggested that the attacker was a loner who struggled with social interactions and relationships, was a semi-skilled labourer who worked on the railways and probably didn't interact with people on a daily basis. The police compared this profile against all known suspects in the area. John Duffy was the only suspect who matched it. The police carried out surveillance on Duffy and his behaviour raised suspicions. Police searched his house and found his **** kit including a specialist tape that is used to bound victim's hands. Duffy was arrested and eventually found guilty of all the attacks.

Investigative psychology: a form of bottom-up profiling based on psychological theory.

• Interpersonal coherence - witness statements to see what they do on a daily basis.
• Forensic awareness - wear gloves, breaking and entering, etc?
• Smallest space analysis - data about crime scenes and offender characteristics are correlated so the most common connections can be identified.

Geographical profiling: a form of bottom-up profiling based on the pattern shown by the location/locations of a series of crimes.

Analyses the locations of a connected series of crimes and considers where the crimes were committed, the spatial relationships between different crime scenes and how they might relate to an offender's place of residence. Circle theory:

• Marauder - offender's home is within the geographical area in which crimes are committed.
• Commuter - offender travels to another geographical area and commits crimes within a defined space around which a circle can be drawn.

Criminal geographic targeting:

• A computerised system.
• Formula - produces a 3d map displaying spatial data related to time, distance and movement to and from crime scenes.
• Map - jeopardy surface. The colours indicate likely closeness to crime scene.

+ Support - Canter's profile of the Railway ****** using the bottom-up approach directly led to the capture and conviction of Duffy.

+ Objective and scientific - based on data as it relies on statistical analysis and the use of databases.

+ Reliable - based on up-to-date resources.

Biological: mental illness; thrill (adrenaline rush); aggression; genes; alcohol and drugs.

Social: society norms; poverty; childhood (Freud/Bowlby's maternal deprivation); abuse; self-defence; peer pressure (social media); boredom; rebellion; family background (role models).

Cognitive: knowledge; revenge; mental illness; personality.

The historical approach was put forward by Lombroso in 1876. He believed that criminals possessed similar characteristics to lower primates and this could explain their criminality.

Atavistic form:

Atavistic form - an explanation for criminal behaviour, suggesting that certain individuals are born with a criminal personality is a throwback to earlier primate forms.

“There is an asymmetry of the face, excessive dimensions of the jaw and cheekbones, eye defects and peculiarities. Ears of unusual size, or occasionally very small, or standing out from the head as do those of the chimpanzee; nose twisted, upturned, or flattened in thieves, or aquiline or beak-like in murderers, or with a tip rising like a peak from swollen nostrils...chin receding, or excessively long, or short and flat, as in an ape...excessive length of arms; fingers and toes.”

Empirical evidence: post-mortem examinations of criminals. He made precise measurements of skulls and other physiological characteristics (anthropometry). He examined 50,000 criminals. In one particular study of 383 convicted Italian criminals, he found that 21% had just one atavistic trait and 43% had at least 5.

Environmental influences:

• Born criminals - the atavistic type; 'throwbacks' identifiable from their physical characteristics.
• Insane criminals - suffering from a mental illness.
• Criminaloids - a large general class of offenders whose mental characteristics predisposed them to criminal behaviour under the right circumstances.

Lombroso recognised that it can’t just be on factor; it’s a deterministic view as it suggests that factors outside a person’s control determines whether they become criminal.

Somatotypes:

Ernst Kretschmer (1921): 4 types based on 4,000 criminals.

• Tall and thin = petty thieves.
• Tall and muscular = crimes of violence.
• Short and fat = crimes of deception and violence.
• Mixed = against morality.

- Deterministic - criminal behaviour results entirely from your biological make-up. It also proposes that, depending upon biological make-up, some people are destined for a life of crime.

- Validity - it is outdated and has been discredited as it had no valid or reliable evidence to support it.

- Learning difficulties - sample is questionable as he did not screen out people with learning difficulties, which may lead to being convicted of crime and may also have linked physical characteristics.

Super-male syndrome:

Males with this genetic condition have an extra Y chromosome on chromosome 23. So, instead of the usual XY formation, they have XYY. This is a genetic mutation that happens randomly at conception in about 1:1000 males.

Such males are typically taller than average with lower intelligence, and some may have behavioural problems.

Price (1966) linked this abnormality to violent crime by suggesting that these men may lack empathy and become aggressive.

Evaluation:

(-) Deterministic – limiting the explanation to a simple gene sequence and suggesting that this automatically causes criminal behaviour is reductionist and deterministic.

(-) Majority – many men with XYY do not commit crime, and most criminals do not have XYY genes.

Crime runs in families:

Farrington (1996) conducted a longitudinal family study of 411 males from 397 families over 24 years. The study found that:

• 6% of families accounted for 50% of convictions recorded in the sample. 
• 75% of families where the parents were convicts, had a convicted child.
• 75% of families with one child convicted also had another convicted.

It suggests that criminal behaviour is transmitted in families.

Twin studies:

Typically show a higher concordance rate for offending behaviour between MZ twins than DZ twins. Raine (1993) found MZ twins to have 52% concordance for crime compared to only 21% in DZ.

Twins share the same birth order and family circumstances. If the concordance rate for MZ differs from that of DZ, it can be assumed to be a result of the different proportion of genes in common.

Adoption studies:

These look at behavioural correlations between adopted children and their biological parents compared to their adoptive parents. They allow for the relative role of nature vs nurture in the formation of behaviour to be investigated.

Hutchings and Mednick (1975, 1994) found that in a smaller of male adoptees, 86% of those with a criminal conviction had a biological father who had also been convicted, whereas adoptees who had not been convicted had a convicted father 31% of the time.

Evaluation:

(-) Nature-nurture – in family studies, the children could have learnt criminal behaviour rather than been genetically disposed towards it.

(-) Adoption studies – remove the effect of learning from biological parents. However, the age of adoption or the amount of contact with the wider family cannot be controlled, so it still not possible to rule out social transmission of offending behaviour.

Neurochemical differences:

Noradrenaline is associated with the fight-or-flight response. Raised levels may increase the likelihood of an aggressive reaction. Serotonin is involved in mood and impulse control. Changes in serotonin levels could increase the chances of an impulsive response in a person. Dopamine is released in the reward pathways when we do something pleasurable. Drugs affect dopamine levels and lead to addiction. Addiction makes a person more vulnerable to criminal behaviour.

Evaluation:

(+) Brunner (1993) – found evidence from a case study of a family of violent criminals that showed differences in the way serotonin was metabolised.

(-) Lacks experimental validity – research into neurochemical effects on behaviour cannot definitively prove cause and effect. The chemical imbalance may be caused by a pre-existing mental health disorder, which may be the reason for crime.

Structural differences:

The limbic system includes the hippocampus and amygdala, which processes emotional information. The amygdala is implicated in psychopathic behaviour. A smaller than average amygdala is linked to a lack of empathy.

The anterior cingulate cortex links the limbic system to the prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for impulse control and social interactions. Damage to the prefrontal cortex has been shown to be associated with criminal behaviour.

Evaluation:

(+) Raine (1997) – found lower activation in the prefrontal cortex of murderers compared to matched controls when doing a task in a PET scanner, suggesting that there are differences in the brains of those who do and do not commit crime.

(-) Individual differences – not everyone with this type of neurology will go on to commit crime, which challenges the deterministic conclusions that could be drawn from the research. Some become successful in business, by using the traits associated with psychopathic personalities in a legal way.

Eysenck's theory:

This explanation combines biological and psychological theories. Eysenck proposed that there are three identifiable personality types and that each of these has a biological basis.

Eysenck believed that an individual's adult personality is a mix of genetic traits and learning experiences. This mix is used to explain why some people show criminal behaviour - it is the result of their personality type mixed with certain learning experiences.

3 key dimensions:

• Extraversion-introversion: extroverts are characterised as outgoing, having positive emotions, but may get bored easily.
• Neuroticism-stability: neuroticism is the tendency to experience negative emotional states rather than positive emotional states.
• Psychoticism-normality: psychotic are egocentric, aggressive, impulsive, impersonal, lacking in empathy and generally not concerned about the welfare of other people.

The third stage was added later. 

Unstable - stable.

Introvert - extrovert.

Eysenck believed that each of these dimensions were normally distributed. Majority of the population (68%) would be within one SD of the mean.

Biological basis:

Extraversion:

• The ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) is responsible for the general arousal levels in the nervous system.
• It is connected to the cerebral cortex.
• It governs arousal of the brain.

Neuroticism:

• The limbic system, which controls our emotional reactions, is easily triggered.
• Neurotic people will react to emotional stimuli quickly.

Psychoticism:

• Hormone levels are implicated.
• High levels of testosterone are associated with increased aggression.
• Issues with the metabolism of serotonin means levels are affected.

Link to crime:

Eysenck proposed that people who were high in psychoticism (P), extraversion (E) and neuroticism (N) - the PEN personality - would be more likely to commit crime due to a combination of personality characteristics. 

"Conditioning" - 'normal' person: wrongdoing is avoided because of previous punishment.

+ Less deterministic - interactionist as it doesn' say that one type determines behaviour.

- Not useful - the EPI questionnaire is not a valid measure of personality because people may not be honest they can't answer 'yes' or 'no'. However, it offers an explanation for a lot of crimes.

- Free will - it doesn't acknowledge free will.

Cognitive distortions are examples of irrational thinking. Reality has become twisted so that a person's perception no longer represents what is true.

An attribution is the meaning we give to something - it is how we interpret behaviour. So, if someone smiles at us, we might interpret this to mean that they are friendly. A hostile attribution is when we interpret behaviour in a negative way. So, a smile could be interpreted as being sarcastic or threatening. 

Minimalisation is when we either over-exaggerate or under-estimate the consequences of our behaviour. So, a burglar might under-estimate the impact his actions have on the owners of the house.

+ Useful - faulty thinking leads to criminal behaviour. Same principals for depression and schizophrenia.

- Why have some people got faulty processing - it doesn't explain why some people have faulty processing.

+ Real-world application - Heller worked with a group of young men who were mainly from disadvantaged groups in Chicago. They used cognitive behavioural techniques to reduce judgement and decision-making errors. Those participants who attended 13 one-hour sessions had a 44% reduction in arrests compared to a control group. However, this is for treatment, not as an explanation.

Morals - understanding of what is right or wrong.

• They are learnt.
• Legally understand what morals are at the age of 10.

Kohlberg conducted research looking at stages of moral development.

• Heinz dilemma.

He interviewed boys and young men (gender bias) about the reasons for their moral decisions and constructed a stage theory of moral development.

Ages: 7, 10, 14, 18, 21.

He tested people from a range of countries: America, Mexico, Turkey and more.

(Range of cultures - can generalise data, but only for males).

He had consistent results.

Levels:

• Pre-conventional level: accept the rules of authority figures and judge actions by their consequences. Stage 1 - punishment and obedience. Stage 2 - instrumental purpose.
• Conventional level: individuals tend to believe that conformity to social rules is desirable, but this is not out of self-interest. Stage 3 - good boy/girl. Stage 4 - social order.
• Post-conventional level: individual moves beyond unquestioning compliance to the norms of the social system. Stage 5: social-contact. Stage 6: universal ethical principles.

Criminals may think it's morally right (justifying their actions). 

E.g. Harold Shipman (a GP doctor) gave lethal doses of morphine to elderly patients to make them die in their sleep so they don't suffer. 

- Sample - the sample is gender biased, as Kohlberg only studied males, when applying to crime.

+ Ethnocentric - Kohlberg studied males from various different countries; lots of cultures.

- Not useful - it doesn't take into account the environment or a person's upbringing.

You are a product of your environment.

It was initially used to explain why crime was passed from fathers to sons (gender bias) because of observation and learning. 

Sutherland proposed the differential association theory in 1939 (historical validity).

He believed that criminal behaviour could be explained purely in terms of social learning. People were socialised into crime (no free will).

Why differential association and not social learning? We have different contact with other people. The more time we spend with a group of criminals, the more likely you become a criminal (conformity).

It is deterministic.

What is learned? How to commit a crime; thought processes.

Who is it learned from? Family; peers; intimate connections. (Media today).

How is it learned? Positive reinforcement; role models.

+ Face validity - it has face validity as an explanation for gang-related crime, as gang members learn from each other, so it can account for this kind of crime.

- Isolated crimes - the theory lacks detail and ignored criminal acts. It is deterministic and reductionist.

Psychodynamic explanation - refers to any theory that emphasises change and development in the individual, particularly those theories where 'drive' is a central concept in development.

Freud's stages of development:

• Oral.
• Anal.
• Phallic.
• Latency.
• Genital.

Phallic stage: Oedipus/Electra complex - feelings of jealousy towards the opposite same-sex parent. They go through the process of identification to adopt the behaviour dad/mum has.

After identification, the superego develops; the conscience.

Superego - embodies our conscience and sense of right and wrong, as well as notions of the ideal self.

A criminal has adominant id and a weak superego. It is believed that criminal behaviour will be a result of an inadequate superego. 

Freud did not talk about criminal behaviour. Blackburn (1993) applied the principles of the superego to explain three types of inadequate superego that could explain criminal behaviour.

The weak superego: if the same-sex parent is not present during the child's phallic stage, the child cannot internalise a fully-formed superego from this parent so there is no opportunity for identification. This would make criminal behaviour more likely as the child does not have a fully formed superego - weak morals. The individual therefore is ruled by their id - they are only concerned with what they want.

The deviant superego: if the superego that the child internalises has immoral or deviant values, then this would lead tooffending behaviour.

E.g. a boy that is raised by a criminal father is not likely to associate guilt with wrongdoing.

The over-harsh superego: a healthy superego is like a kind, but form internal parent - it has rules, but is also forgiving of transgressions. In contrast, an excessively harsh superego means that the individual is crippled with guilt and anxiety. This may drive the individual to perform criminal acts in order to satisfy the superego's need for punishment.

Maternal deprivation - Bowlby (child psychiatrist):

• The loss of emotional care that is normally provided by a primary caregiver (mother/mother figure).
• Prolonged separation.

Consequence: affectionless psychopathy; no feelings of empathy or guilt.

Study of 44 thieves.

+ Supporting evidence - Bowlby is a respected child psychiatrist and so his study of maternal deprivation and the 44 thieves provides evidence for the psychodynamic explanation of offending behaviour.

- Gender bias - Freud suggested that women have a weaker superego than boys; the Oedipus complex is stronger than the Electra complex. If it was right, more women should be committing more crimes than men, but they don't.

- Historical validity - can't compare to today, as there are more single parent families (for various reasons) nowadays since 1905. It is out-of-date.

Custodial sentencing - it is when an offender is sent to prison.

Zimbardo: took healthy men to be prisoners, but the study ended after 6 days due to the effects on them; they weren't coping and some were depressed.

Why? Identity was taken away - number and overalls; no choice, power or control; no freedom = no self-esteem.

Aims:

• To protect the public: incapacitation.
• To punish an offender and prevent recidivism.
• To deter others. 
• To atone from wrongdoing: retribution. 
• To rehabilitate offenders.

Recidivism - this is when a person re-offends after receiving some form of punishment for previous offences.

Prison Reform Trust (2014): 46% of adults and over 67% young offenders are reconvicted within a year. The cost to the economy of re-offending is at least £9.5 billion per year.

Psychological effects of custodial sentencing:

• De-individuation: a psychological state in which individuals have lowered levels of self-evaluation and decreased concerns about evaluation by others.
• Depression, self-harm and suicide: 2008 - 10,000 incidents of self-harm. The greatest risk group for suicides is single young men in the first 24 hours of imprisonment. 
• Overcrowding and lack of privacy.
• Effects on the family: children affected financially and psychologically. Parents may feel guilt and anxiety.

+ Recidivism - punishing the behaviour decreases the likelihood of offenders repeating the behaviour in the future.

+ Deterrent - prison sentences discourage the general population from committing crime. We learn indirectly from the consequences of others' behaviour.

- Training ground - prisons may increase the likelihood of re-offending because they are a 'training ground for crime'.

- Individual differences - 50% of the prison population go on to re-offend.

Behavioural modification - a therapeutic technique used to increase or decrease the frequencies of behaviour using operant conditioning. 

Operant conditioning - learning through reinforcement or punishment.

Token economy - a form of therapy where desirable behaviours are encouraged by the use of selective reinforcements. Tokens are given as secondary reinforcers when individuals engage in correct/socially desirable behaviours. The tokens can be exchanged for primary reinforcers - food or privileges.

Prisoners are given tokens when they perform desirable behaviours = tobacco, food or watching TV, etc.

Punishment: a further strategy is to remove token because of undesirable behaviour = punishment.

Hobbs and Holt (1976): they observed a token economy at a boy's school (aged 12-15 years).

Aim: reduce inappropriate social behaviour before and after dinner and when lining up.

Procedure: staff were given extensive training to identify target behaviours; 125 males were observed (one control group).

Findings: the baseline mean percentages for social behaviours before the boys were given tokens were 66%, 47% and 73% for each of the three cottages. These increased post-tokens to 91%, 81% and 94%, an average increase of 27%. The control group showed no increase in the same time period.

+ Successful - evidence to show that it does work.

- Individual differences - not going to work for everyone.

- Cost - costs to train staff.

- Ecological validity - it does not work in everyday life as there is no one to issue the tokens.

Anger management - a form of cognitive behavioural therapy specific to changing the way a person manages their anger.

* As well as prison *

Key aims (Novaco, 2011):

• Cognitive restructuring.
• Regulation of arousal.
• Behavioural strategies.

Stress inoculation model:

1. Cognitive preparation - clients learn about anger generally, how it can be both adaptive and non-adaptive. They analyse their own patterns of anger and identify situations which provoke anger in them.

2. Skill acquisition - clients are taught various skills to help manage their anger, such as self-regulation, cognitive flexibility and relaxation. They are also taught better communication skills so they can resolve conflicts assertively without being angry.

3. Application training - clients apply the skills initially in controlled and non-threatening situations, such as role plays of situations that previously made them angry. They receive extensive feedback from the therapist and other group members. Later, clients can try out their skills in real-world settings.

+ Ireland (2004): tested the programme on a prison population and found a 92% improvement in behaviour compared to a control condition, suggesting that it is an effective treatment.

- Lack internal validity - the data relied on self-report and therefore it may be inaccurate and lack internal validity as the prisoners might exaggerate their improvements.

- Measure - it is hard to measure whether it produces long-term benefits as this data would be based on recidivism rates, which depends on the perpetrators of violence being caught and convicted.

Restorative justice - a method of reducing and atoning for offending behaviour through reconciliation between offender and victim, as well as the wider community.

1. Rehabilitation of offenders - the victim has an opportunity to explain the real impact of the crime and this enables the offender to understand the effects on the victim. Offenders may learn to take the perspective of others, which reduces the possibility of re-offending. The offender is encouraged to take responsibility for their crime.

2. Atonement for wrongdoing - offenders may offer concrete compensation for the crime. The 'atonement' is psychological by simply showing their feelings of guilt. The offender can show an understanding of the effects of their action. The victim has the opportunity to express their distress, and the offender with a chance of developing empathy by taking the perspective of the victim.

3. Victim's perspective - from the victim's perspective this can reduce their sense of victimisation because they are no longer powerless and have a voice. A victim may develop a greater understanding of the offender by listening to their account which reduces the victim's sense of being harmed.

A theory of restorative justice (Wachtel and McCold, 2003):

• Focus should be on relationships rather than punishment.
• 3 parties involved: offender, victim and the wider community.
• The victim seeks reparation, the offender must take responsibility, and the community aims to achieve reconciliation to maintain a healthy society.
• Peace circles have been set up in many communities where violence and crime levels are high. They aim to foster an environment of respect where the community offers support to victims of crime, but also welcomes the offender into the circle to enable mutual understanding.

+ Sherman and Strang (2007) - in a large-scale multi-cultural study found that it changed the offender's perspective and reduced recidivism for most offenders across a range if crimes. They also found that the victim's mental health benefited through a reduction in post-traumatic stress.

+ Effective - all studies done to research restorative justice showed reduced re-offending rates. This is the only way of dealing with offending behaviour that has shown this.

- Self-report data - the evaluation of such programmes depends on self-report data from victims and offenders, which can be unreliable as they may give socially desirable answers about the value of the intervention.