wjec criminology unit 2

Psychoanalysis and treatment for criminal behaviour:

-        Treatment where patients verbalise their thoughts and feelings through a range of methods

-        Individuals often lay on a couch away from the analyst

-        This aims to access their unconscious thoughts

-        Uncovers any psychological problems caused in child hood

-        Time consuming, unlikely to get quick answers and could also damage the patient

Behaviour modification:

-        Punishing behaviour to weaken thought process that leads to criminal behaviour

-        Increases desirable behaviour and decreases problematic behaviour

-        Uses tokens to reward good behaviour that can be traded in for possessions

-        They are effective for a short while however they tend not to occur beyond the institution in the long term (Hobbs and Holt 1976)

Social skills training:

-        Provided to avoid offending

-        However, skills can be forgotten as soon as the training stops

Anger management:

-        Aims to avoid violent/anger driven offenses

-        Cognitive techniques are used

-        This can be effective as Novaco 1975 suggests offenders cannot control their anger, so they take it out in anti-social ways

Neurochemicals:

-        The influence on the brains, chemistry due to diet

-        Possible to diet for aggressive behaviour which would result in less crime occurring

-        Virkkunen et al (1987) found that violent offenders had a lower than average serotonin level

-        Schoenthaler (1982) found that a reduced sugar diet reduced antisocial behaviour by 48%

-        Prisons now embrace the balance of a good health model

Eugenics:

-        Genes explain presence of simple and complex human characteristics

-        Shows people with criminal parent will also proceed to gain these criminal characteristics

-        Reinforces the idea of biological determinism

-        Osborn and west (1970s) gave evidence to support the theory as 40% of boys who had criminal records had fathers that had the same

Death penalty:

-        Murder rate is low when there is no death penalty

-        Individuals are less likely to consider consequences when making decisions

-        Mostly do it while on illegal substances or by having mental illnesses

-        Death penalty was abolished in the UK in 1969

Penal populism:

-        The governments attempts at proposing laws to punish offenders in ways the public want

-        Policy started because of the James Bulger case 1993

-        Media has fuelled and contributed to this making the…