FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY

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FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY

• Turning To Crime
• CRIMINAL COGNITIONS

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Is crime rational?

• RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY says offenders weigh up
  pros cons before offending
• A COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
• Factors monetary gain, excitement, respect vs
  shame, loss of freedom, fear
• Some people have more to lose than others

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Do offenders think rationally?

• YOCHELSON SAMENOW (1977)
• Long-running study into criminal thinking at St
  Elizabeths Psychiatric Hospital, Washington DC
• Original sample 255 offenders
• Different races, social class, backgrounds
• In depth interviews, psychodynamic

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Criminal thinking errors 1

• Offenders make thinking errors different from
  normal people
• ? their cost-benefit analyses comes to different
  conclusions
• 40 different types of error
• CRIMINAL THINKING PATTERNS
• High expectations (search for perfection),
  fearful of others, habitual lying, need for
  power/control

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Criminal thinking errors 2

• AUTOMATIC THINKING ERRORS
• Lack of empathy/trust, doesnt accept
  blame/responsibility, secretive
• CRIME-RELATED THINKING ERRORS
• Offenders fantasise about certain crimes but
  dont imagine consequences
• YSs techniques led to creation of
  COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY (CBT)

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Psychopaths

• Hervey Cleckley (1941) The Mask of Sanity
• Impulsive, callous, insincere no remorse or
  empathy with victims
• PRIMARY PSYCHOPATHS ? no fear
• SECONDARY PSYCHOPATHS ? compelled to take risks,
  unstable life plan

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Violence Inhibition Mechanism (VIM) 1

• When other people are in pain (DISTRESS CUES),
  normal people experience ancxiety and withdraw
  (the VIM)
• Biological mechanism, strengthened by parents
• Blair et al (1997) used Hares Psychopathy
  Checklist (PCL) to identify 18 psychopaths
  non-psychopaths in prison

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Violence Inhibition Mechanism (VIM) 2

• All men were matched for ethnicity, IQ and crime
  (murder or manslaughter)
• 28 slides 5 with distress cues
• 5 with danger
• Stress measured through SKIN CONDUCTANCE RESPONSE
  (SCR)
• Psychopaths showed less response to distress cues
  and no different response to threatening images

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How does thinking develop?

• At A/S you were introduced to JEAN PIAGET

• Researched COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT in children

• Maybe MORAL THINKING develops too.

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PIAGET EGOCENTRISM

• Piaget suggests EGOCENTRISM is seeing things only
  from your own view

• Young children are MORALLY EGOCENTRIC
• Difficulty thinking about other peoples
  feelings, intentions
• Need for hard, fast rules

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PIAGET AUTONOMY

• Older children are AUTONOMOUS thinkers
• They consider other peoples intentions and
  feelings
• Importance of FAIRNESS and RESPECT

• Piaget interviewed children playing marbles
• Older ones could develop new rules!

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PIAGETS MORAL STAGES

• (1) PRE-MORAL JUDGMENT
• No idea about morals or rules
• Birth ? 5 years
• (same as SENSORI-MOTOR stage)
• (2) MORAL REALISM
• Egocentric stage rules are fixed
• 5-9 years
• (same as PRE-OPERATIONAL and CONCRETE OPERATIONAL
  stages)

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PIAGETS MORAL STAGES

• (3) MORAL RELATIVITY
• Own internal morality can criticise rules
• 7 years
• (same as CONCRETE and FORMAL OPERATIONAL stages)
• Piaget gave children DILEMMAS to consider
• A boy deliberately causes small damage vs a boy
  accidentally causes big damage
• Which deserved most punishment?

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PIAGETS MORAL STAGES

• Stage 2 focus on CONSEQUENCES
• Punish boy who caused big damage
• Stage 3 focus on INTENTIONS
• Punish boy who caused deliberate damage
• CRITICISMS
• Eco Validity marbles????? Irrelevant!
• Validity did young children understand?
• Ethnocentrism culture-specific to West

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Introducing KOHLBERG

• Laurence Kohlberg (1927-87)
• American psychologist Harvard professor
• In youth, helped Jews escape Nazis by smuggling
  them in banana crates!
• Inspired by Piagets theories

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The Druggists Dilemma (1958)

• A woman was near death from a special kind of
  cancer. There was one drug that might save her
  that a druggist in the same town had recently
  discovered

• The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist
  was charging ten times what the drug cost him to
  produce - 2,000 for a small dose

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The Druggists Dilemma (1958)

• The sick woman's husband, Heinz, tried to borrow
  the money, but could only get 1,000
• He asked the druggist to sell it cheaper or let
  him pay later. But the druggist said, "No, I
  discovered the drug and I'm going to make money
  from it
• So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's
  store to steal the drug for his wife.
• Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to
  steal the drug for his wife?
• Why or why not?

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The Moral Stages

• Answer not important what matters is REASONS
  for answer
• STAGE 1 (Obedience)
• Heinz should not steal the medicine because he
  will consequently be put in prison which will
  mean he is a bad person

• Heinz should steal the medicine because it is
  only worth 200 and not how much the druggist
  wanted for it Heinz had even offered to pay for
  it and was not stealing anything else

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The Moral Stages

• STAGE 2 (self-interest)
• Heinz should steal the medicine because he will
  be much happier if he saves his wife, even if he
  will have to serve a prison sentence

• Heinz should not steal the medicine because
  prison is an awful place, and he would probably
  suffer in a jail cell more than his wife's death

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The Moral Stages

• STAGE 3 (conformity)
• Heinz should steal the medicine because his wife
  expects it he wants to be a good husband

• Heinz should not steal the drug because stealing
  is bad and he is not a criminal

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The Moral Stages

• STAGE 4 (law order)
• Heinz should not steal the medicine because the
  law forbids stealing, making it illegal

• Heinz should steal the drug for his wife but
  also take the punishment for the crime. Criminals
  cannot just run around without regard for the
  law

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The Moral Stages

• STAGE 5 (human rights)
• Heinz should steal the medicine because everyone
  has a right to choose life, regardless of the law

• Heinz should not steal the medicine because the
  scientist has a right to fair compensation. Even
  if his wife is sick, it does not make his actions
  right

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The Moral Stages

• STAGE 6 (universal ethics)
• Heinz should steal the medicine, because saving
  a human life is a more fundamental value than the
  property rights of another person
• Heinz should not steal the medicine, because
  others may need the medicine just as badly, and
  their lives are equally significant

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Criticising Kohlberg

• This view of morality is too focussed on JUSTICE
• What about compassion?
• Kohlbergs student, CAROL GILLIGAN
• Too ANDROCENTRIC based on male attitudes

• Female morality based on relationships,
  childbirth, dilemmas like abortion

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Link Between Morality Crime?

• A more fundamental question
• Some things are unethical but not illegal

• Eg adultery
• Others are illegal but not morally wrong

• Eg Cash-in hand work (tax dodging)

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Link Between Morality Crime?

• A vegetarian animal-lover?

• Level 6 rejects conventional morality
• Replaces with own views on value of human life
• Serial killers do this

• Most terrorists claim to have a superior moral
  vision

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Do Criminals Think Differently

• In 1964 David Matza challenged the idea that
  criminals think differently from normal people
• Based on CONTROL THEORY
• We all have criminal thoughts tendencies a
  dark side

• SUBTERRANEAN VALUES vs FORMAL VALUES
• Fun, freedom spontaneity
• Work, duty order

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Drift Theory

• Matza says we drift into and out of deviant
  behaviour
• Stealing sweets in childhood?

• Drug taking at college or at Glastonbury?

• Pinching biros from the office?

• Anonymous sex in Ibiza?

• Criminals differ only in time, place, frequency

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Drift Theory Mood of Fatalism

• So its normal to DRIFT into delinquency
• You feel small, helpless, pushed around
• MOOD OF FATALISM
• Typical in young adulthood
• Restore MOOD OF HUMANISM
• Assert yourself, get noticed, get respect.
  Through crime?

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Drift Theory

• Matza interviewed young offenders
• Many respected law-abiding values
• They knew their own behaviour was wrong
• Matza argues they think like everyone else
• but they neutralise guilt

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Drift Theory Guilt Neutralisation

• Matza interviewed young offenders
• Many respected law-abiding values
• They knew their own behaviour was wrong
• Matza argues they think like everyone else
• but they neutralise guilt

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Drift Theory Guilt Neutralisation

• Denial of responsibility blame parents, school,
  peers
• Denial of injury nobody was hurt, only having
  fun
• Denial of wrongfulness the victim deserved it
• Condemn the rule enforcers police are corrupt,
  teachers unjust
• Appeal to higher loyalties break law to help
  family or friends

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Drift Theory

• Matza argues that GUILT NEUTRALISATION shows they
  have the SAME VALUES as law-abiding people
• This has been criticised
• Takes offenders self-reports at face value
  (naive)
• Only accounts for delinquency
• What about career criminals?
• Strong link to LABELLING THEORY