psych

• What are the four levels of the top-down approach?

  1. Data assimilation

  2. Crime classification

  3. Crime reconstruction

  4. Profile generation
• Evaluations of the top-down approach

  1. Only applies to specific crimes including murder and rape

  2. Too simplistic to reduce the types of offender to only two (Canter 2004) organised+disorganised may overlap

  3. eliminates suspects and prevents wrongful arrest
• Outline the bottom-up approach

  Makes use of data from similar crimes to build a picture of the offender. It looks for consistencies in offenders behaviour.

  Example- John Duffy
• What is investigative psychology?

  Looks to see if similar offences are linked. Interpersonal coherence means the offenders behaviour during the crimes likely to be the same as how they act in real life. Forensic awareness looks at how much the offender has attempted to cover up, implying they may have been questioned before.
• What is geographical profiling?

  Finds where an offender is likely to live. Canters circle theory 1993- marauders: restrict their crimes to areas they're familiar with. commuters: travel to another area and don't hide their identity as they don't think they will be recognised.
• Evaluations of bottom-up approach

  1. Can apply to more than one type of crime

  2. Canter collected evidence from 120 murder cases and found offenders home was almost always in centre of crime scene pattern

  3. Resulted in successful arrest of Duffy

  4. 48 uk police forces- 75% said it was useful
• Lombroso believed criminals had characteristics that showed they were less developed in an evolutionary sense. What are some of these characteristics?


  Strong jaw, heavy brow, drooping eyelids, big ears, flat nose, high cheekbones, dark skin. Non-physical: tattoos and unemployment
• What was Lombroso's study?

  He examined the features of nearly 4000 criminals and the skulls of 400 dead criminals. He believed the characteristics indicated they weren't responsible for their actions and couldn't be blamed for their innate physiology.
• Evaluation of Lombroso's atavistic form


  1. lack of a control group- non prisoners have same characteristics. He also ignored environmental factors like poor diet that may affect someone's physical appearance.

  2. androcentric- didn't include women, believed they were passive and less likely to be criminals

  3. racial bias- curly hair+dark skin which he considered. as atavistic are mainly found in African people

  4. Goring looked at 3000 criminals+non and found no evidence offenders are group with unusual features.
• Outline Christiansen's (1977) twin study

  Examined 3500 twin pairs in Denmark for concordance rate of criminality: Male identical twins- 35%

  Female identical- 21%

  Male non-identical- 13%

  Female non-identical- 8%

  They are quite low suggesting environment still plays large part in criminal behaviour.
• Outline Brunner's (1993) family study


  Large Dutch family- responsible for various counts of criminal behaviour such as attempted rape and arson. Found that the males had genetic condition "Brunner syndrome" resulting in low IQ of 85 and fault in MAOA gene that affects neurotransmitters such as serotonin that is linked to aggression.
• Outline Crowe's (1972) adoption study

  Adopted children with biological parent with criminal record had 50% chance of having one themselves by 18 compared to adopted children who didn't have a biological criminal parent with only 5% risk.
• Evaluation of genetic explanations for criminal behaviour

  1. Twin studies may not be valid as identical twins often brought up in same way and involve smaller samples

  2. Many children adopted later in life so are still influenced by biological parents

  3. Brunner- family lacks representativeness, can't apply

  4. Reductionist- nurture argument says its important to look at external factors like parenting and culture that may affect criminal behaviour
• Outline Raine's study on brain structure

  They studied 41 violent offenders and compared the activity in their prefrontal cortex to 41 non-criminals using PET scans. The criminals showed less activity in their prefrontal lobe suggesting they have less control over impulses and don't suffer from guilt.

  Objective evidence- PET scans, scientific method, increases validity and reliability
• Outline Potegal's study on the amygdala

  When the amygdala (part of limbic system) in hamsters was stimulated it led to increased aggressive behaviour- showing the amygdala is linked to aggression
• Outline role of neurotransmitters

  Noradrenaline- high level causes violence

  Serotonin- low level causes impulsivity

  Dopamine- role in addiction
• Evaluation of neural explanations

  1. research into neural factors can lead to treatments- low levels of serotonin causes aggression thus prisoners can be given diets increasing serotonin

  2. seeing offending behaviour as biological is deterministic-people have no choice over their brain and genetics, but the CJS assumes criminals have free will

  3. reductionist- reasons for criminality vary. likely to be caused by nature+nurture
• Define extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism (Eyesenck's criminal personality)

  E- seek excitement, risk-taking, don't learn from mistakes

  N- over-anxious, hard to predict behaviour

  P- aggressive, uncaring

  he also believed criminals are impatient
• Evaluate Eyesenck's psychometric testing


  1. assumes personality is stable

  2. self-report measures- can only say yes or no, may lie

  3. ignores cultural differences in personality- Bartol studied hispanic+africanamerican criminals and found they were less extraverted than non-criminal control group
• What are Kohlberg's levels of moral reasoning?

  1. Pre-conventional- rules obeyed to avoid punishment and for personal gain

  2. Conventional- rules obeyed for approval and social order

  3. Post-conventional- rules obeyed to protect everyones rights
• Evaluation of Kohlberg


  1. measures what people think they would do rather than what they actually would do

  2. androcentric and culture biased

  3. its difficult for children to imagine Heinz' perspective
• What are cognitive distortions?

  Negative or irrational thinking which give people a distorted view of reality, affecting the way they behave.
• What is hostile attribution bias?

  When someone interprets the innocent actions of others as hostile or unfriendly.
• What is minimisation?


  Downplaying the seriousness of an offence. Can also be seen as denial. Kennedy (1992) found majority sex offenders blamed victim and a quarter of them believed the abuse was good for the victim.
• Evaluation of cognitive distortions

  1. more useful describing thought processes go through after crime, doesn't explain how they got there in the first place.

  2. understanding cognitive distortions helps with treatment- Heller found young men from Ohio has treatment t reduce HAB and there was a 44% reduction in arrests
• Outline Sutherland's differential association theory

  Offending behaviour explained entirely through social learning and associations with others. It is learned and not genetic. It is usually learned from intimate social groups we all have.
• Evaluate DAT


  1. introduced white collar crime- didn't just assume only w/c are criminals

  2. explains recidivism- when in prison, they can learn techniques from other experienced criminals

  3. cannot explain impulsive crimes- assumes people build up to crimes through interaction
• What is the importance of the superego?


  It is when a child identifies with their same-sex parent- it is the moral part of personality and influences the ego by punishing it for wrongdoings. Thus, if a child is deprived of a same-sex parent this may lead to criminality.
• What is the deviant superego?


  When child identifies with same-sex parent who has a poor moral code, child is likely to have the same attitudes and not feel guilty for committing crime.
• What is the harsh superego?

  Child identifies with a strict parent so experience extreme guilt. They commit crime to be caught and punished to reduce feelings of guilt.
• What did Bowlby find in his study on 44 thieves?

  He compared 44 thieves with 44 control patients. None of control patients had early separations but 39% of thieves did. He also found those with affectionless psychopathy all experienced frequent parental separations.
• Evaluation of Bowlby


  1. alpha bias- assumed women had weaker superego and were less moral. If this were true there would be more female criminals

  2. no evidence guilt and desire for punishment causes criminality- most criminals go to lengths not to be caught

  3. improvement of care for children- proved that when emotional care is given during separation later delinquency and mental problems can be avoided
• What are the aims of custodial sentencing?

  1. Deter- stop future crimes

  2. Punish- harshness of punishment match crime committed

  3. Rehab- education or therapy

  4. Protect- putting criminals in prison
• Evaluation of custodial sentencing

  1. Hollin 1992 says large proportion of offenders reoffend

  2. Peterson 1981- 10% of criminals responsible for 50% of all crime committed
• Outline depression as a psychological effect of custodial sentencing

  Zamble 1988- longitudinal study, anxiety and depression high at start of sentence, but decreases over time.

  US prisons- depression affects almost 19% of prison population which is nearly 3x more that whole population
• Outline suicide and self-harm as a psychological effect of custodial sentencing

  Daniel 2006- first 30 days is high risk period where most likely to attempt suicide

  Dooley 1990- suicide among prisoners 4x higher than rest of society

  Snow 2006- those who attempt suicide are more passive and withdraw from others, those who self-harm show more angry and violent behaviour
• Psychotic disorders


  Heather 1977- Scottish inmates, increased symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions
• Anxiety disorders


  Kruppa 1991- prison environment gives more chance to reflect on what they've done, leading to flashbacks and anxiety
• Evaluation of psychological effects

  1. Cause and effect- 70% of prisoners have mental condition but difficult to tell if they suffered previously or developed in prison.

  2. lack of research so difficult to replicate- Blackburn 1993 very few studies arrived out into emotional well being of prisoners due to society's prejudice
• What is a token economy?

  (Behaviourist approach) uses operant conditioning to rehabilitate offenders. Tasks are rewarded with tokens that can be traded for desirable privileges.