Psychological Theories

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PsychologicalTheories

• A Criminal Mind?

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IQ

• What is IQ?
• Alfred Binet developed the first intelligence
  test but it was really W. Stren who created a
  general test and came up with the IQ
  (intelligence quotient)
• How has IQ been used to explain Crime?
• Henry Goddard revised the test and used it to
  look at delinquency,
• He came up with the notion that feeblemindedness
  was linked to criminality and that
  feeblemindedness was hereditary.
• This has turned out to be bunk but it did lead to
  mass serialization
• Mich. In the 1970s

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Mental age of 13 is cut off

• Found that about 70 of criminals were
  feebleminded
• Whole families, Kallikaks
• Union between a bar wench and good man host of
  bad kids
• Same man and Quaker woman good kids

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Policy

• Institutionalization
• Colonies
• Sterilization
• Eugenics

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• Hirschi and Hindelanga maintained that low IQ was
  mediated by negative school experiences, family
  etc. thus low IQ itself was not the cause
  directly
• There may be some connection but not likely
  direct, some even question how much IQ taps into
  innate intelligence

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Criticisms

• Bell Curve, social class
• Poor women should not breed
• Blacks have lower IQs
• Is IQ hereditary?
• Does test measure innate intelligence?
• Do different racial/ethnic groups have different
  IQ levels?

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Criminal Personality

• Freud
• Id present at birth the unconscious composed
  of drives and instincts
• Eros sex
• Thanatos -- aggression
• Ego develops between 6 and 8 months
• This is reality principle - satisfies needs of
  ID
• How we try to satisfy needs in socially
  acceptable ways

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• Superego between 3 to 5 years it emerges
• Embodies social values, norms etc. and allows us
  many things such as feeling guilt
• Crime can result from
• An underdeveloped superego
• Parental neglect can lead to norms not being
  adequately internalized which leads to
  unregulated ID
• An overdeveloped superego how?
• Wanting to be punished - guilt

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• How does underdeveloped ego impact deviance?
• Penis envy what is that all about?
• Ego defense mechanisms
• Displacement - transfer to someone else
• Reaction-formation - take on opposite reaction
• Psychoanalytical theories see crime as an outcome
  of a messed up ego or superego.

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Mental Illness

• MMPI personality traits seem to have some
  connection, maybe, but criminals by and large
  seem to be normal
• Psychopath - selfish, callous, unreliable,
  impulsive, lack of guilt, unable to learn from
  past or punishment no evidence that home life or
  childhood produce this
• Schizophrenia - irrational, break with reality,
  delusions, etc. few criminals have this disorder
• Multiple personality disorder - multiple selves,
  very coherent and independent
• The connection between mental health and crime my
  be there, but again, it is only a very small
  portion of arrests for violent crime.