Forensic Psychology

• Problems in defining crime:

  • Crime is a social construct heavily reliant on context
  • Crime is seen as an act against the community requiring legal punishment
  • In UK law, crime is determined by a guilty act (actus reus) violating the law
  • An act is a crime when carried out voluntarily with intention (mens rea)
  • Considerations when defining crime: historical context, cultural context, age, specific circumstances
• Historical context:

  • Laws change over time, impacting what is considered criminal
  • Example: homosexuality was illegal in the UK but decriminalised in 1967
  • Technological advances lead to new forms of crime like identity theft and cybercrime
• Cultural context:

  • Different cultures have varying views on what constitutes a crime
  • Example: polygamous marriage vs. bigamy in the UK
  • Female genital mutilation (FGM) is illegal in the UK due to cultural differences
• Age:

  • Age affects the definition of crime and legal responsibility
  • UK age of criminal responsibility is ten
  • Example: James Bulger case raised questions about age and criminal responsibility
• Specific circumstances:

  • Sometimes breaking the law may be justified by specific circumstances
  • Crime is seen as "conscious rule breaking"
  • Courts consider individual motivations and context when defining a crime
• Ways of measuring crime:

  • Official statistics
  • Victim surveys
  • Offender surveys
• Official statistics:

  • Collected by the Office for National Statistics
  • Include data on various crimes like criminal damage, drug crime, and physical/sexual crime
• Victim surveys:

  • Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) collects data from households
  • Face-to-face survey on crime experiences and attitudes
  • Helps identify groups most at risk
• Offender surveys:

  • Offending Crime and Justice Survey (OCJS) gathers data from offenders
  • Provides insights into offender behavior and attitudes
  • Helps identify risk factors and develop prevention programs
• The American Approach to offender profiling was adopted by the FBI in the 1970s
• Hazelwood and Douglas (1980) distinguished between organised and disorganised offenders in an FBI Bulletin on "lust murder"
• Organised Offender:

  • Planned
  • Victim targeted
  • Personalises the victim and controls conversation
  • Aggressive acts performed before death
  • Weapon is absent from the scene
  • Body is hidden from view at the scene or removed from it
  • High intelligence
  • Social competence
  • Usually has a partner
  • Skilled occupation
  • Watches media coverage of crime
• Disorganised Offender:

  • Unplanned
  • Victim not targeted
  • Victim is depersonalised and avoids conversation
  • Unplanned violence
  • Weapon is often present
  • Body is often left visible at the scene rather than removed
  • Low intelligence
  • Socially awkward
  • Unlikely to have a partner
  • Poor employment history
  • Little interest in their crimes
• Douglas (1992) identified a third offender type known as "mixed" to classify those who don't easily fit into organised or disorganised categories
• The top-down method of profiling is also known as crime scene analysis
• Stages of crime scene analysis:

  • Data assimilation: collection of all evidence available
  • Crime classification: organising the crime into a particular type (organised or disorganised)
  • Crime reconstruction: reconstructing the crime to develop predictions about the motives and behaviour of the offender/victim
  • Profile generation: developing a profile based on various characteristics, including physical appearance and personality
• Canter et al. (2004) conducted content analysis on 100 cases of serial killers in the US to test the accuracy of organised and disorganised offender types
• Bottom-Up Approach to Offender Profiling:

  • Sometimes known as the British Approach
  • Developed by David Canter
  • Makes use of past data on similar crimes to build a picture of the offender
• Principles of bottom-up profiling:

  • Interpersonal coherence
  • Time and place
  • Criminal characteristics
  • Criminal career
  • Forensic awareness
• Geographical Profiling:

  • Locatedness
  • Systematic crime location choice
  • Centrality
  • Comparative case analysis
• Canter and Youngs (2008) identified principles of geographical profiling:

  • In any violent crime, several locations may be relevant
  • Crime scenes are not random
  • Crime scenes tend to cluster
  • Comparative case analysis
• David Canter assisted in capturing the "Railway Rapist" through offender profiling
• Canter's profile of the "Railway Killer" included personality and geographical characteristics
• Canter's profile led to the arrest of John Duffy, who later revealed his accomplice David Mulcahy
• Canter's profile was not completely accurate but was sufficient for police to question Duffy and place him under arrest
• Canter's bottom-up approach is more useful as it can apply to more than one type of crime compared to top-down profiling
• Offender profiling can be based on objective data rather than intuition, as seen in the bottom-up approach
• Kaplan’s (1980) “self-derogation” theory argues that persistently poor interactions due to appearance can lead to lower self-esteem and increased frustration, making individuals more likely to commit criminal behaviour
• Interactionist approach: suggests an interaction between biological aspects of appearance and treatment, leading to offending behaviour
• Lombroso's atavistic form theory may explain up to a third of criminal population
• Twin studies: show concordance rates for criminal behaviour in monozygotic twins (35% males, 21% females) and dizygotic twins (13% males, 8% females)
• Family studies: Brunner et al. (1993) found males with "Brunner syndrome" had lower IQ and deficiency in MAOA enzyme, predisposing them to offending behaviour
• Adoption studies: Crowe (1972) found 50% of adopted children with criminal biological mothers had criminal records by 18, suggesting a genetic predisposition to criminality
• Neurotransmitters: Serotonin linked to mood and impulsiveness, low levels associated with aggression and criminal behaviour
• Dopamine: linked to pleasure and reward, associated with addiction and substance abuse, indirectly linked to criminal behaviour
• Brain regions: Amygdala linked to emotion regulation and aggression, frontal lobes linked to social behaviours and planning
• Raine et al. (1997) found reduced brain activity in offenders charged with murder or manslaughter, suggesting abnormal brain function in violent offenders
• Eysenck's Theory of the Criminal Personality:

  • Personality traits are dimensions of extraversion and neuroticism
  • Extraversion: high extraversion individuals seek excitement, might include criminal behaviour
  • Neuroticism: relates to stability of personality, high neuroticism score might be more likely in a person who engages in offending behaviour
  • Psychoticism: degree to which somebody is anti-social, aggressive and uncaring
  • Criminal personality seen in people who score highly on extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism
• • Study by Eysenck and Eysenck (1970) found consistent high scores for psychoticism and neuroticism, but not for extraversion as predicted
  • Study on female offenders confirmed Eysenck's prediction across the three dimensions
  • Review by Farrington et al. (1982) found consistent link between high scores of psychoticism and neuroticism, but not with extraversion
• Cognitive Explanations of Offending Behaviour:

  • Kohlberg's theory of moral development applied to crime
  • Moral reasoning becomes more complex and abstract as a child ages
  • Levels and stages of moral reasoning: pre-conventional, conventional, post-conventional
  • Kohlberg's assessment through "Heinz's Dilemma"
  • Offenders tend to be at a lower level of moral development than non-offenders
  • Offenders show different levels of moral reasoning based on the type of crime committed