GoConqr has a new look! Let us know what you think.

Sign up free

Flashcards

PSYB3: Forensic Psychology

Annemarie Ndalo English 23 cards

Cards in this deck (23)

  1. 1Define offender profiling?Offender profiling is to be able to build a picture of the characteristics of those involved in a certain type of crime through the collecting empirical evidence.
  2. 2what is the typological approach and how does it work?Typological profiling primarily relies on the evidence obtained at the crime scenes of specific crimes.
    The 4 stage process for how typological profiling works:
    1) Data assimilation = investigators gather information together from different sources (police reports, crime scene)
    2) Crime scene classification = Profilers decide whether the crime scene is organised or disorganised
    3) Crime reconstruction = Hypothesis generated about what happened (sequence of events)
    4) Profile generation = Profilers construct a sketch of the offender including demographic, behaviour habits and physical characteristics.
  3. 3Define organised and disorganised crime.Organised crime is when the offender doesn't know the victim, they bring a weapon to the scene and have control of their victim.
    Common characteristics of this offender are that he is unknown to the victim, he is socially and sexually competent, has normal to high intelligence and is angry or dressed.
    Whereas, disorganised crime is when the offender knows the victim, has little control of the victim and the weapon is improvised.
    Common characteristics of a disorganised offender are that the offender is sexually or socially inept, is severely mentally ill, and has low intelligence.
  4. 4Limitations of typological approach- Canter found that the organised characteristics were typical of most serial killers but the disorganised characteristics were rare because they didn't occur often enough to be considered a type. Suggesting that there isn't a clear differentiation between the two categories. Thus invalidation the typological approach.
    - This approach is only relevant to a minority of crimes because not all offenders fit into these categories. therefore, this distinction is an oversimplification of and the attempt to bring in 'mixed' categories for all of the other types of offences, makes us question the original notion of only two types of offenders.
    - The categories are based on Hazelwood's study of 36 american serial killers. Therefore, the sample is unrepresentative because their is no cultural variation and the sample size is too small to be generalised/ be seen as representative.
  5. 5What is geographical profiling?Geographical profiling is a field of investigative psychology which involves generalising from locations of linked crime scenes to the likely home, work or social base of the offender.
  6. 6What is the circle theory of the geographical approach?This type of profiling relies on the offender operating in areas they know well. This is the circle theory. Canter found that the 85% of offenders they studied lived inside the circle, encompassing their offences.
  7. 7What is the routine activity theory (RAT) in geographical profiling?This is an approach that focuses on the fact that crimes need three circumstances to coincide. these three factors are:
    1) motivated offender
    2) a suitable victim
    3) the absence of a capable guardian
    RAT doesn't answer why the crime was committed, it just assumes that in any area, there is a number of people who are motivated a crime.
    An example of this, is Canter describing the used of a computerised programme known as dragnet which used information about the location of the offences to determine where the offender is likely to live. This in turn enables the investigating officer to use his or her knowledge of the area to narrow the focus of the investigation to a specific place.
  8. 8Strengths and limitations of geographical profiling.+ Useful for all types of crimes unlike typological which is only useful for violent crimes.
    + Canter found that the homes of murders tended to fall in the centre of the geographical pattern of their offences and secondly, the offenders tended to dispose of their victims bodies in a different location from their first body dump. thus, showing that spatial information about body dumps could be useful in locating the offenders base; further supporting the effectiveness of geographical profiling.
    - However, though information about location of crime is important, it isn't enough to identify the killer effectively. Therefore BOTH approaches to profiling need to be combined since details of the location are insufficient. The behaviour of the offender and the victims details will also be important.
  9. 9A case that supports the geographical approach to offender profiling.Canters: John Duffy, Railway Rapist.
    This case involved 24 accounts of rape and 3 murders. Canter was able to use his of the details and geographical profiling to analyse the details and draw up a profile. The police department short listed 2000 men using their blood type. Duffy was one of them and he was already in the system for allegedly attacking his wife. Therefore, Canter used geographical profiling to narrow down the list of suspects and found that Duffy was the only suspect living in the Kilburn area of London who exhibited the characteristics that canter predicted.
  10. 10Strength and weakness of Canters John Duffy case+ It is holistic. therefore it takes into account all factors such as biologcial influence (blood group), location, forensic evidence as well as behaviourist characteristics. thus, giving us a fuller/richer detailed approach to convicting offenders.
    - Lacks validity because it may only be useful if the suspect was a previous offender or is in the system. This is because you cannot get information of a person to make a comparison, if they aren't in the database. Its against their privacy.
    - Methodologically low in generalisability because it can only be generalised to serial killer or usual crimes because t relies primarily on patterns of behaviour from an individual
  11. 11:Early biological explanation of offending: What does atavistic form mean and how does it explain criminality?According to lombrosso, the atavistic form is a heritable criminal feature that determines whether we are criminals or not. This explains criminality because lombrosso proposed that offenders are born with an innate predisposition to criminality they are a separate species who have primitive genetic atavistic.
    Support: To support his theory, Lombrosso collected large amount of data on Italian prisoners and the Italian military. The results obtained led him to the conclusion that criminals were identifiable through distinctive physical anomalies such as. heavy brown, strong jaw, extra nipples etc.
  12. 12What is the somatotype early biological theory to offending?Sheldon proposed a constitutional theory of crime based on the somatotype (body type).
    Sheldon conducted several studies on male physiques and claimed to find a correlation between somatotype and personality traits. This led him to come up with three different body types: endomorph (fat), ectomorph (slim) and mesomorph (muscular). He suggested that people with a meromorphic build were more likely to offend because they have a higher percentage of muscle and have aggressive and adventurous temperaments.
  13. 13Limitations for lombrosso's theory- Methodologically, Lombrosso's theory lacks scientific credibility because he didn't use a control group which means he failed to compare the military group and the prisoners to a non-criminal sample in order to ensure that the atavistic form that he identified ,was present amongst the criminal population.
    - Care should be taken when generalising the results because Lombrosso based his conclusion on samples obtained from an Italian prison and military. Therefore, sample used was unrepresentative of all criminals except from the Italian ones.
    Support for this is that Goring refuted lombrosso's study by conducting his own on 3000 inmates in an English prison and a similar number of non-criminals. He found that there was no difference between the two groups.
  14. 14Limitations of Sheldon's somatotype theory- The theory lacks temporal validity because fraud is currently the fastest growing type of crime in the UK and it doesn't involve an aggressive personality type or a meromorphic build.
    - The relationship between somatotype and offending is only correlational as opposed to causal. This is because many other factors may be acting as a confounding variable. For example, it could be argued that the prison regime could end up turning an endomorph/ectomorph into a mesomorph. Thus suggesting that consquences of that behaviour could be to develop a mesomorphic build. Also, self fulfilling prophecy could play a part because the person may believe that because they look like a criminal, the need to behave like one.
  15. 15Define genetic transmission as a biological explanation of offendingThis is when you use both twin and adoption studies to investigate the heritability of offending behaviour.
    Twin studies: In twin studies MZ twins share 100% of their genes therefore, any similarities in their levels of criminal behaviour could be attributed to their genetics.
    Adoption studies: Compares the concordance rates between adoptive parents and biological parent. Therefore, offending is genetic, there should be a larger concordance rate with the individual and their biological parent. But if the concordance rate is higher between the adoptee and the individual then a nurture argument could be argued.
  16. 16Strength and weakness of genetic transmission+ Lange found that MZ twins were 77% concordant for criminal behaviour whereas DZ twins were only 12% concordant. Thus showing that the higher the degree of relatedness, the more likely one twin is to display the same offending behaviour the other does. Suggesting that criminality is inherited. Further supporting the biological approach. However, because the concordance was only 77% not 100%, it suggests that biology (genes) isn't responsible because other factors such as environment play a part.
    -Lange's study failed to control the confounding variable of MZ twins being more likely than DZ twins to have a similar shared environment. Therefore, MZ twins may be treated alike because they look similar. However in research where this has been controlled, a great difference in concordance rates has been found. For example, Christian found concordance rates of 35% for MZ and 12% in DZ.
    - As for adoption studies,children who are adopted, tend to be placed in homes similar to that of their biological parents. consequently, nature confounds any effect.
  17. 17Psychodynamic explanation of offendingThis basically refers to the id being a pleasure principle that seeks instant gratification of the biological urges. If the ego is prevented from fulfilling its urges, aggressive tendencies emerge because the superego fails to sufficiently control the ego.
  18. 18:Psychodynamic explanation of offending: Define Blackburns three types of superegosBlackburn proposed three types of superegos which may lead to criminal behaviours.
    The first one is the weak super ego. This refers to the absence of a same sex parent during the phallic stage that result in the child being deviant because the haven't internalised a moral code of what's right or wrong.
    The second one is the deviant super ego. this states that the individual internalises a deficient moral code due to the morality of the same sex parent. Consequently has morals which are at odd with society. e.g. stealing is ok because father got away with it.
    The third one is an overly harsh ego. This refers to the individuals superego excessively demanding guilt. This leads to criminal behaviour in order to fulfil the unconscious desire to be punished.
  19. 19Define Bowlbys maternal deprivation hypothesis.Bowlbys maternal deprivation hypothesis stated that if a child failed to attach by the age of 2 , then they will never be able to attach and would suffer from maternal deprivation which would result in a long term irreversible consequence such as delinquency and affectionless psychopathy.
  20. 20Strength and limitations for the psychodynamic approach of offending+ A strength is that Bowlbys 44 thieves study supported his maternal deprivation hypothesis because he found that 17 of the 44 thieves studied had frequently been separated from their mothers before the age of 2 compared to only 2 in the non-delinquent control group. Furthermore, 14 of the 44 thieves were diagnosed as affectionless psychopaths and 12 had experienced separation from their mothers (privation).
    - Methodologically, experimenter bias was present because Bowlby used his own classification to diagnose the boys as affectionless psychopaths. therefore, this may have invalidated the research.
    -Also, his findings were methodologically flawed because they primarily relied on retrospective data. This means that the boys had to recall events from their early childhood and distortions in memory are likely. Thus making the results unreliable.
  21. 21Limitations for the psychodynamic approach continued- Rutter argued that privation other than deprivation was the cause of delinquency. This is because there is no simple cause and effect relationship between delinquency and material deprivation because factors such as why they were separated and how the separation was handled need to be taken into consideration.
    - This theory is a metaphysical theory. Therefore, it means it is unclassifiable because scientist can't physically instigate the concious. Thus making it unscientific.
    - Lastly, this theory is deterministic because it is suggesting that criminals have no free will over their actions due to behaviour being motivated by their unconscious. In stating that criminality is determined, it negates personal responsibility by implying that criminal cannot help offending.
  22. 22Social learning theory explanation of offendingAccording to SLT behaviour can be vicariously learnt and reinforced. This is because an individual observes the model demonstrate the criminal behaviour, and get reinforced for it. For example,, observing a model steal money and buy a pair of shoes, or a brand new car. This will cause the individual to repeat the behaviour because they are expecting to be reinforced for doing so. However, if the model is caught in the act, the imitator is unlikely to repeat that behaviour again.
  23. 23Strengths and weaknesses of the social learning theory+ Bandura and Ross found that the highest level of imitation occurred in the group of children that had seen a models aggressive behaviour rewarded. This in turn had implications for vicarious anti social behaviours that children may acquire via role models.
    - Crimes tend to be committed spontaneously by opportunist offenders. Therefore, because SLT claims that observation and imitation are instrumental in determining criminal behaviour; it cannot explain opportunistic offending.
    + SLT further explains the influence of media violence and why violent games can lead to aggressive behaviour in children (modelling and vicarious reinforcement) because TV characters are rarely punished for violent behaviours.
    - Unlike lombrosso's theory which states that criminals are under evolved, SLT stresses the importance of normal processes in the acquisition of offending behaviour without the need to assume abnormality.

Information

Description
Flashcards on PSYB3: Forensic Psychology, created by Annemarie Ndalo on 01/06/2015.
Created by
Annemarie Ndalo
Views
4
Rating

Feedback

What is it about?

What do you think of the new look?

How do you like it?