Issues and debates

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Ethics

  • Research involves exposing indiv. to stressful situations, e.g. mock trials/ artificial crime scenes
  • " " uses actual witnesses from real-life crimes- cause level of distress for ppts
  • Ethical consideration needed to ensure indiv. have the capacity to give consent as they be emotional at the time e.g. witnesses in a real-life crime/inability to give consent 
  • e.g. offenders with mental impairments
  • Use of naturalistic experiments reults in indiv. providing consent after unwillingly participating in experiment 
  • Debreif is critical in these situations- not justifiable for deception though
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Practical issue in the design & implementation of

  • Field experiments require careful consideration
  • Minimise effect of external variables so that IV and DV are easily investigated 
  • e.g. time of day articial task is conducted within the field- minimises likelihood of situational variables e.g. getting dark will influence witness recall if the IV is weapon focus
  • Lack of realism- it's illigal and immoral to conduct research on real-life victims and witnesses- considerd perversion of the course of justice to study a real jury. 
  • Thus, experiments are set up, mock juries used and ppts are exposed to tasks that lack mundane realism/stimulations the ppts are aware of
  • Findings thus lack ecological validity & causes unatural behaviour
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Reductionism

Criminological psychology aims to identify specfic factors that contribute to criminality, e.g. genetics or envirnmental influences

Reductionist apporach- not holistic explanation for criminality- number of influences to explain beh. 

Thinking about indiv. beh is unitary ways makes it easier to overlook aspects of the complex natrue of criminality 

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Comparisons between ways of explaining beh. using

  • Explaning criminality using biological and cognitive psychology for example 
  • Direct comparisons made- crime due to a person's way of thinking and their attitiudes & how our biological make-up may contribute to offendig beh.
  • or whether genetics hormones or social factors have the greatest influence on criminal beh.
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Psychology as a science

  • Uses various research methods- some considered more scientic than others. 
  • Lab experiments used to investigate memory for EWT-
  • Field experiments- higher likelihood for extraneous variables- affect outcome of experiment, less cotrolled, thus less scienfitic than lab ex. 
  • Experiments are cosidered the most scientific tool used in psychology as they purpose a testable hypothesis & gather emperical data using objective measures
  • Qualitative research methods e.g. interviews are applicable when assesing effectiveness of treatment among offenders. 
  • As this method is subjective- requires interpretation this diffucult to replicate- less scientific
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Culture

  • Most research into criminological psychology undertaken in western culture- particular legal systems and cultural beliefs
  • Influences findings & makes them less applicable to other cultures disimilar to that being explored
  • e.g. cultural backround of EWTs or jury members can have a significant influence on how they interpret what they say/info presented to them 
  • Thus, important to understand the background culture of the indiv. to determine its effect on their decsion making
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Gender

  • Patern within data regarding male offenders- represent highest proportion of convicted criminals in UK
  • Explanations for offending e.g. elevated testosterone levels or XYY syndrome help to explain make offending but don't explain why females commit offences- reductionist
  • likewise, structured treatment programmes have been designed for men- thus don't reflect the needs of female offenders- thereby making them less effective for female offenenders completing such treatments. 
  • thus, less is known about the factors influencing women and how to address these treatments needed.
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Nature vs nurture

Twin studies used when looking at factors influencing an indivdual engaging in antisocial beh.

Use of MZ and DZ twins allows researchers to look at whether the genetic element has an effect- i.e. both twins become criminals or if one of them is i.e. only one does- environmental factors

The latter explains why one twin might not become a criminal if exposed to different factors within their environmenent compared to their twin

Nature nurture debate provides some info as how to treat criminality

Nurture- changes to an indiv. lifestyle and environmental factors can reduce the likeihood of offfending e.g. peer influence 

Nature- hormone levels, genes an other internal factors predispose to criminality 

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Development of psychological understanding

Many of the explanations regarding EWT draw on an understanding of memory that was developed many years ago

Recent studies build on this knowledge- helping to provide a greater application of established theories and approaches to a specific area

e.g. the understanding of the relationship between memory and EWT has contributed to the developement of the cogntive interview technique use by the police-this technique increases accuracy of the testimony obtained- becoming the standard procedure today 

In recent years- there's been a resurgence of research into why indiv. commit criminal acts 

There's been a number of technical advances that have helped this area of study

e.g. the ability to explore the genetic make-up of an indiv. can identify innate factors among offenders and brain scans can help us understand the cognitive processing of a criminal brain 

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Use of psychological knowledge in soceity

Research into EWT and jury decison making has helped psychologists understand the cognitive processes that witness and jury members go through in a criminal trial

Aided the evaluation of the accuracy of EWT while also influencing how witnesses are managed- to maximise memory accuracy and reduce bias e.g. the use of the cognitve interview within police interviews

Influences the structure and guidelines followed in trials to minimise the influence of external factors on jury members e.g. isolating juries to prevent the influence of publicity on decision making

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Issues related to socially sensitive research

Researching offending behaviour can be sensitive e.g. the manner in which the data is collected and the application and implications this data has on socieital views about offenders 

e.g. in JDM there's a substantial emphasis on the race of defendants on trial- there's a lot of researching investigating the effects of race on JDM- typically black or hispanic

Findings can create a bias in the perception of ethnic minorities and their true representation within criminal settings 

Likewise, using brain studies and genetic mapping to identify indiv. who may be more likely to engage in offending beh can be considered inflammatory 

with the causal effect of the presence of specific genes or brain structures not proven, it's important that assumptions are not made about such indiv.- nor their future beh. being incorrectly anticipated. 

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Issues of social control

Investigating offending beh and the reasons why indiv. commit offences influences decision making about the management and treatability of offenders 

Evidence that suggests that indiv. with specific biological charcteristics or social experiences may have greater tendancy to commit offences has the potential to be misapplied- this is particularly the case when considering the level of risk that the indiv. may present to the public 

It can exaggerate risk and could be used as a means of controlling the freedom of the indiv. 

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