Introduction to criminological Psychology

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Introduction to criminological Psychology
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Criminology intro...

• A young woman goes to the funeral of her mother.
  There she meets a man whomshe has never met
  before. She identifies him as the man of her
  dreams andimmediately falls in love. Two days
  later she kills her sister. Why?

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Answer......

• She killed her sister in hope that the mysterious
  stranger at her mother's funeral would also
  attend the sister's as well.This is the test
  that people use to see if you have the compacity
  to be a seriel killer

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Theories Of Crime

• Physiological Theories
• Psychoanalytic theories
• Learning Theories

• Biological types
• Biochemical factors criminals have a different
  genetic make up to the rest of us (Lombroso
  Ideology)
• Biological Factors.
• Result of past experience or conflict.
• Children have been exposed to violence in their
  environment and have learned maladaptive
  behaviours.

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Defining Crime

• Defining crime may seem straight forward but it
  is not as easy as all that. There are different
  ways of looking at crime, using different
  perspectives.

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Defining Crime cont

• The Consensus View
• The conflict view of crime
• The Interactionist View

• Crime is a violation of the law, which is
  disapproved of by members of society because it
  goes against the general consensus.
• Society is made up of conflicting groups who for
  various economic reasons are dissatisfied, this
  dissatisfaction promotes crime.
• We understand social behaviour in terms of roles
  and role behaviours which people adopt in day-day
  living.
• Thus the act itself is not criminal-its the
  meaning behind the act.

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Finding out about crime

• Like defining crime ,finding out about crime is
  less straight forward than it first appears on
  the surface.
• The rate of crime is known as the ?????
• Whilst the statistic describing the percentage of
  individuals who experience crime is known as
  ???????

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Police recording of crime

• Official statistics emphasise the problem of
  identifying crime
• For what reason???
• Hood Sparks (1970) suggested that only about
  2/3rd of serious crime that is reported were
  actually recorded on the official register.
• Hough Mayhew (1985) estimate that only 75 of
  reported robberies were recorded and in the case
  of bicycle theft the figure reported was as low
  as 2.
• EVALUATIONTherefore the dark figure in crime
  stats refers to crimes that are committed but not
  recorded, it has a major limitation in that it
  can only ever be a guess.

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Police recording of crime

• Offender surveys
• Belson(1975) carried out an offender survey in
  which 1445 boys aged 13-16 were interviewed about
  crime and crime related acts
• FINDINGS
• 70 of the sample had been involved in theft from
  a shop.
• 17 admitted to having stolen from private
  property.
• What do these findings imply?

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Police recording of crime

• Victim Surveys
• Hough Mayhew (1983)
• From their survey estimated those over the age
  of 16 might expect to be burgled once every 40
  years, but robbed or assaulted once in every 500
  years. (Note90 of those surveyed reported no
  experience of crime)

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Physiological theories of crime.

• Genetic factors
• Lombroso suggested that criminals had a
  different make up and that certain types could be
  identified as criminals on the basis of their
  physical characteristics such as body shape.

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Endomorphic body types

• Endomorphic Body Type
• soft body
• underdeveloped muscles
• round shaped
• over-developed digestive system
• Associated personality traits
• love of food
• tolerant
• evenness of emotions
• love of comfort
• sociable
• good humored
• relaxed
• need for affection

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Mesomorphic body type

• hard, muscular body
• overly mature appearance
• rectangular shaped
• thick skin
• upright posture
• Associated personality traits
• adventurous
• desire for power and dominance
• courageous
• indifference to what others think or want
• assertive, bold
• zest for physical activity
• competitive
• love of risk and chance

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Ectomorphic body types

• thin
• flat chest
• delicate build
• young appearance
• tall
• lightly muscled
• stoop-shouldered
• large brain
• Associated personality traits
• self-conscious
• preference for privacy
• introverted
• inhibited
• socially anxious
• artistic
• mentally intense
• emotionally restrained

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More on body types

• Sheldon(1949)Conducted research on body types and
  looked specifically at 400 males in a
  rehabilitation centre and found more mesomorphs
  than any other body type
• Although this body type analysis became a
  popular view, recent studies have proven this
  notion to be quite unsupported.

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More on body types

• Although body types have prove to be a factor.
• Why might this be the case?????
• Feldman (1977) found evidence for stereotyping
  from police arrests as they were more likely to
  arrest larger types as they fit the bill.

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Genes the role they play.

• Lombrosos idea of physiology and crime began
  what is now known as criminology (Schafer, 1976)
• There is a problem with casual attribution. A
  great deal of Lombrosos information came from
  studies with criminals but there were no control
  groups..thus they lacked comparison.

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Genes the role they play.

• Family studies have indicated that criminality
  may run in the family.
• Osborn West (1979) found that 40 of sons of
  fathers who were criminals were criminals
  themselves, whereas only 13 of the sons of
  non-criminal fathers were criminals.

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Genes the role they play.

• Twin studies have also been used to look at the
  possible genetic link.
• Hollin (1989) reviewed a number of studies and
  found on average the concordance rates for
  criminality is 48 for MZ twins (100 genes)
  versus 20 for DZ twins (50 genes).

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Genes again..

• Another explanation for criminal behaviour is
  that criminals may have an extra chromosome.
• The human genome consists of 23 pairs of
  chromosomes.
• Women have two x chromosomes and so described as
  XX whilst men have One Y and one X (XY).
• It is not unheard of for some to and additional
  chromosome, a fact that was discovered in the
  early 1960s.

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Genes again.

• Sandberg et al (1961) reported a study of
  chromosomal abnormality in a prison population,
  and argued that some 5 of criminals had XXY
  Syndrome.
• This suggested this may be a factor, particularly
  in violent crimes.
• Evaluation.
• Owen challenged Sandbergs findings arguing
  there was a problem in categorising people as XXY
  and there did not appear to be more XXY in prison
  than in the entire population.

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Genetic linkAn evaluation.

• Correlation should not imply cause n effect.
• There is a problem with separating nature from
  nurture.
• There is evidence that MZ twins are treated
  similarly by virtue of there looks, thus there is
  still an issue of nature vs. nurture.