Criminal Psychology

12 Key excerpts on "Criminal Psychology"

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  Criminal Psychology

  • David Canter(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Criminal Psychology, therefore, relates to many and various aspects of human activity, and as a consequence, draws on many different disciplines, as varied as cog-nitive science and jurisprudence. The related social science disciplines that deal with aspects of criminality and the law are drawn on to understand the context and significance of offence behaviour. In addition, there are related areas of study that consider the forensic traces criminals leave, whether it be where crimes occur or aspects of the chemistry or physics of a crime. These traces can inform the understanding of the patterns of criminal behaviour. 6 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE CRIMINAL PROCESS PSYCHOLOGY AND THE CRIMINAL PROCESS 7 FIGURE 1.2 Showing many of the disciplines that contribute to the study of the psychology of crime and criminals. EXPLANATIONS OF CRIME It is out of the differentiation of crimes and criminals that the various forms of psycho-logical explanations of criminality emerge. An important point to get clear from the start is that there is no evidence that mental illness is the cause of criminality. The complexity and variety of criminal activity indicates that it is very unlikely that crime is produced by mental illness or, more generally, mental disorder. The emphasis that some psychologists, such as Blackburn (1994), give to mental problems in criminals is partly a product of their focus being on clinical populations. This has also meant that the aspect of the examination of criminals that emphasises a clinical psychological or psychiatric perspective has tended to be biased towards rather extreme and unusual subsets of criminals. In essence, the people studied by clinicians have been those who have been referred for treatment. They, therefore, are likely to be people who are obviously mentally disturbed or whose crimes have bizarre or extreme qualities to them, such as serial rape, or serial arson or serial homicide.

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  An Introduction to Criminal Psychology

  • Russil Durrant(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Psychology here refers to the academic discipline of psychology (which includes the study, among other things, of brain processes, development, cognition, personality, social influence, and culture) not just peoples’ thinking process and personality (as in the psychological level of analysis discussed below). Unfortunately, although there is some agreement regarding the boundaries of ‘psychology’ and ‘criminology’, there is no such consensus on what is meant by ‘Criminal Psychology’, and there are a number of overlapping terms that are also employed including ‘forensic psychology’ ‘psychological criminology’, ‘criminological psychology’, and ‘legal psychology’. For some (e.g., Blackburn, 1996), the term ‘forensic psychology’ refers specifically to the application of psychology to the legal system – as reflected in the etymology of the word ‘forensic’, as ‘pertaining to the courts of law’. Other scholars offer a more narrow interpretation of ‘forensic psychology’ as the ‘practice of clinical psychology to the legal system’ (Huss, 2009, p. 5). To complicate matters, the term ‘forensic psychology’ is also used more broadly to embrace the application of psychology to virtually anything related to crime, including our understanding of the causes of crime. Davies, Hollin, and Bull (2008, p

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  The Handy Psychology Answer Book

  • Lisa J. Cohen(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Visible Ink Press

    (Publisher)

  What is forensic psychology? The word forensic refers to the legal system. Forensic matters include anything related to the application and enforcement of the law, as well as the prosecution of those who violate the law. Forensic psychology is a relatively new field but it is growing rapidly. Forensic psychologists are involved with many aspects of both civil and criminal law. In matters of civil law, they are involved with competency and disability evaluations, as well as divorce mediation and custody evaluations. In criminal cases, they perform evaluations of the mental state of the defendant (particularly in insanity pleas), and provide expert testimony on relevant psychological factors. Forensic psychologists may also provide psychotherapy for prison inmates, including specific programs for violent or sexual offenders. They also work directly with law enforcement officials. They screen applicants for the police force and can provide stress management, grief work, and trauma counseling to police officers and other members of law enforcement. Finally, forensic psychologists perform scientific research on such topics as the reliability of children’s testimony, recidivism of sex offenders, impulsivity and aggression, and juvenile delinquency. What is criminal profiling? Criminal profiling involves the attempt to identify psychological, demographic, and behavioral features of the criminal solely from crime scene evidence. Over the past thirty years or so, criminal profiling has become very popular in law enforcement and is now a widespread practice in many different countries. Its popularity is reflected in the CBS-TV show Criminal Minds. While there have been a number of attempts to develop theories and systems of criminal profiling, there is very little actual scientific evidence to show that it works. There is debate among researchers whether criminal profiling can even be scientifically validated if appropriate research were done.

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  Theories of Crime

  • Ian Marsh(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 3Psychological Explanations for Criminal Behaviour

  INTRODUCTION

  For many centuries, we have attempted to find out which people are likely to become criminals and what drives certain individuals to commit a particular type of crime in the first place. Over the years psychologists have considered a range of different explanations in order to answer these difficult questions. Some have argued that there may be a genetic explanation which is at the centre of explaining criminal behaviour; others have suggested that it is the environment in which people live which can influence their chance of becoming criminal.

  At different periods in history these ideas have been prominent in the minds of not only psychologists but also other professionals and the public alike. However nobody has seemingly provided a comprehensive and infallible answer to the question of criminality. This chapter will introduce some of the key theories that psychologists have attempted to use to explain criminal behaviour, such as personality, social factors and cognition.

  CRIMINALITY AS AN ELEMENT OF PERSONALITY

  It is common for us to attach labels to criminals and attempt to explain their behaviour through describing them as possessing a certain character trait. For example, it is common to refer to some criminals as ‘psychos’—particularly in films and the newspapers. This type of person is actually called a psychopath and labels such as these have been developed by psychologists to help us understand the different types of personality category that people fit into. Not all of these are criminal, but it is assumed that many criminals possess similar personality characteristics. Clearly there are some important factors to criminality that can be explained by situational and developmental factors, but there is also the psychological element to criminal activity that is relatively unique to that individual. One possible explanation for this desire to uncover the psychological traits of offenders is that it provides a quantifiable difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and to some extent further defines law-breakers as being almost another ‘breed’ of person. The following section will describe the different explanations of criminal personality

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  An Introduction to Criminology (Routledge Revivals)

  • W. A. Bonger(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter VIII On Criminal Psychology DOI: 10.4324/9781315692531-8 Criminal Psychology comprises various departments: (i) the psychology of crime (theory of motives and counter-motives); (ii) the psychology of the criminal; and (iii) that of the other persons involved in the problem (e.g. witnesses). We shall be obliged to confine ourselves here to a brief survey of the history of Criminal Psychology, and to a few observations on the psychology of the criminal in general, and its significance for criminology. 26 The History of Criminal Psychology This history dates from the end of the 'sixties and beginning of the 'seventies of the nineteenth century. It had, however, its precursors. (i) The pre-history of Criminal Psychology. Apart from a few observations made here and there in ancient times, and from what a few great artists—notably, Shakespeare—saw and understood intuitively, the French jurist F. G. de Pitaval (1673-1743) was the first to collect criminal-psychological material, namely, in his work Causes célèbres et intéressantes (1734 et seq.). After this, from 1772-88, F. Richer continued the series, while in Germany, Häring and Hitzig edited Der Neue Pitaval (1842-91), followed later by Der Pitaval der Gegenwart (1903 et seq.). We mentioned these authors previously in another connexion. As is indicated by the tide, only 'interesting cases' were dealt with in this work—i.e. those which interested the reading public though generally not for scientific reasons. The only law cases dealt with were the very big ones, in which 'les plus grands des grands criminels' played a part. Until a comparatively short time ago this remained so, to the great disadvantage of criminology

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  Psychology and Crime

  A Transdisciplinary Perspective

  • Craig Webber, Author(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  2 Psychological Perspectives on Crime Overview Moving on from a historical overview of social scientific understanding of crime, this chapter looks at the different psychological perspectives that constitute psychology. We will see that although they are sometimes presented as discrete areas of research, in fact there is some significant overlap between them. If we want to understand the problem of many accounts of crime, both sociological and psychological, then we can interrogate them through the lens of age. One of the key criminological truisms is that most people grow out of crime (Rutherford 1986/2002). This will be a recurring theme of this chapter so that the different psychological perspectives can be understood through issues like aging and desistance from crime. Key terms ■ Psychological Perspectives; Biological Psychology; Behaviourism; Cognitive Psychology; Psychoanalysis; Social Psychology The previous chapter explored the main approaches to understanding crime as they developed historically; this next chapter is a more in-depth overview of some of the major psychological approaches to studying human behaviour. This is not meant to be an exhaustive overview, merely a reminder for those who have already studied psychology, and an introduction for those who have not. All psychological approaches share the common focus of studying internal mental processes. Psychology can be distinguished from psychiatry through the latter’s focus on the study and treatment of mental illness and emotional disturbance. Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that, for the most part, focusses on illness and derivations from ‘normal’ 1 behaviour. Psychology is interested in a broader range of human behaviour that includes mental functions such as perception (e.g. taste, colour or object sizes), the capacity and ability of memory, as well as behaviour that some might describe as ‘abnormal’ such as aggression

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  Psychology and Law

  International Perspectives

  • Friedrich Lösel, Doris Bender, Thomas Bliesener, Friedrich Lösel, Doris Bender, Thomas Bliesener(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  The basically neglected explanation of delinquent behavior is an urgent issue, especially in view of treatment and prevention concepts (Lösel, 1983). But in terms of both a relationship between the various areas of research and in generating theories, psychology has occasionally tended to maintain a piecemeal-isolationist stance. There is little or no attempt to draw together the various aspects of psychological inquiry, such as say on the police, the courts, and the offender, in a unified way so as to make sense of the overall picture. Psychological theories of criminal behavior can therefore be criticized for concentrating too much on the individual offender to the neglect of the context of the crime. In short, psychology has in the main been about crime; what is lacking is a psychology of and for crime (Hollin, 1989). In criminology there exists a striking multitude of theories and speculative hypotheses, and, on the other hand, a multitude of results on single variables. Even if given explanations compete with each other only partially, the question of assessment criteria and comparison of theories arises, especially in view of the fact that comparatively rigid hypothesis tests For a detailed discussion of this topic see Montada (1990). 28 Günther Kaiser are rare and yield partly unsatisfactory results (Lösel, 1983). Furthermore, common approaches such as learning theory turn out to be irrelevant in practical applications (Keupp et al., 1989; Kornadt, 1988; Lösel et al., 1990), so that the partly contradictory implications of different scientific theories have to be adapted to the practical issue at hand. Current concepts such as that of life-style remain more or less descriptive and limited in their significance (Kaiser, 1990b). In comparison to crime-sociological approaches, crime-psychological explanations are derived to a somewhat greater extent from general behavior theories.

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  The SAGE Handbook of Criminological Theory

  • Eugene McLaughlin, Tim Newburn, Eugene McLaughlin, Tim Newburn(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Criminology has always been psychosocial, in the sense that it has had an interest in both the psychic and the social dimensions of crime from its origins over two centuries ago. More directly, there has been a social psychology of offending behaviour at least since the 1920s. But, mostly the psyche and the social have been kept apart, or utilised without a definite notion of what might be entailed in attempting to bring them together, to think of them as always simultaneously opera-tive on human behaviour, which means to think psychosocially about the object of enquiry. In the last decade or so, the term psychosocial has been explicitly defined as a particular way of theorizing the relationship between psychic and social factors, and its relevance for understanding a variety of criminological topics has been explored (Jefferson, 2002; Gadd and Jefferson, 2007a; Jones, 2008). As we shall see, this is not the same thing as a social psychology (or a psychological sociology, for that matter). This entry aims to tell the story of criminology from this early interest in the psychological and the social as distinctive approaches to the present deliberate naming of the psychosocial as a necessary approach; spell out why this matters; offer an outline of the principles involved in thinking psychosocially and a theoretical sketch of the subject based on such principles; explore the methodological implica-tions of this psychosocial turn; and conclude with some of the unresolved theoretical issues. CRIMINOLOGY AND ITS MULTI-DISCIPLINARY ORIGINS There are a number of ways of telling criminology’s story.

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  Criminological Theory in Context

  An Introduction

  • John Martyn Chamberlain(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  4 Psychological Criminology

  Chapter contents

  • Chapter overview
    54
  • Introduction: the Classical school and Psychological and Biological theories of crime 54
  • Freud and personality development 56
    • Behaviourism and classical and operant conditioning 57
  • Key summary points
    59
  • Further reading
    59
  • Eysenck, dimensions of personality and criminal behaviour 59
  • Key summary points
    61
  • Further reading
    62
  • Sutherland, differential association theory and social learning 62
  • Key summary points
    65
  • Further reading
    66
  • Psychological criminology and mentally disordered offenders 66
    • Profiling homicide and the serial killer: Biological, Psychological and Sociological theories 67
  • Key summary points
    69
  • Further reading
    70
  • Self-study tasks
    70

  Chapter overview

  Chapter 4 examines Psychological criminology and focuses on explanations of crime by focusing on personality and cognitive development as well as psychosocial learning theories in the form of social learning and differential association theory. It also considers the contribution of research into violent and sex offenders to understanding the causes of crime. The chapter highlights how, like Classical criminology and Biological criminology, Psychological forms of criminology locate the causes of crime inside the individual. Although rather than emphasising free will and genetics it is argued that our actions are to some extent determined by our psychological makeup and learned behaviour.

  The chapter begins by outlining the work of Freud, his emphasis on the unconscious and focus on childhood development in influencing adult behaviour, as well as the subsequent emergence of behavioural psychology as a response to the empirical limitations of Freudian theory. It then outlines the work of Eysenck on biological and psychological factors and criminal personality types, as well as that of Sutherland on the importance of learned behaviour within friendship groups which led to the development of differential association theory.

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  Profiling Violent Crimes

  An Investigative Tool

  • Ronald M. Holmes, Stephen T. Holmes(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Under the rubric of individual-level explanations of crime there are many different types of explanations of why one would commit crime and participate in a criminal career. In the past, many believed that demons or evil spirits possessed those that had committed heinous crimes or barbaric acts. While our research and knowledge of the human psyche has evolved quite a bit since those days, demonic possession is still considered an individual explanation of crime causation in many parts of the world. Today, many individual-level theorists are more advanced and point to factors such as personality formation as one of the most formidable reasons why one engages in a life of crime.

  To differentiate individual-level explanations more thoroughly, we will divide this section into three different subsections. In the first, we will look at psychological explanations; the second, psychiatric explanations; and in the final subsection we will examine biological factors that are believed to contribute to one’s engaging in a life of crime.

  Psychology and Crime

  Contemporary theories detailing psychological explanations about criminal conduct tend to emphasize both individual and environmental influences on criminality. These theories claim that something in the environment has triggered an internal response in the individual’s own personality and its development that allows the individual to engage in immoral behavior and criminal activity with relative impunity.

  In fact, many psychological explanations tend to denote various personality attributes exhibited by offenders that if identified early could predict future criminal behavior (Vito & Holmes, 1994). Thus, the emphasis for these theories is the identification of aberrant behavior or tendencies, and how these are acquired, evoked, maintained, or modified (Bartol & Bartol, 1999).

  Crime and Personality Formation

  As discussed above, many psychological theories of crime have focused on an individual’s personality and its formation. It is believed that impulsivity, the lack of an ability to delay gratification, and an innate aggressiveness are all components of a criminal’s personality. As Neitzel (1979) noted, it is believed that “crime is the result of some personality attribute uniquely possessed, or possessed to a certain degree, by the potential criminal” (p. 350).

  One of the most prominent theorists of the psychological school of criminality was Hans Eysenck. Eysenck (1977) professed that sociological theories offered little to the discussion of crime and antisocial tendencies. Instead he remained convinced that psychological factors (more specifically, inherited features of the central nervous system) in interaction with environmental influences were the key to revealing the crime causation origin.

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  Essential Criminology

  • Mark M. Lanier, Stuart Henry, Desire' J.M. Anastasia(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  These clinical psychologists argued that faulty learning produces defective thinking, which results in criminal behavior choices. Yochelson and Samenow developed a theory rejecting the idea of determinism, arguing, “The essence of this approach is that criminals choose to commit crimes. Crime resides within the person and is ‘caused’ by the way he thinks, not by his environment. Criminals think differently from responsible people” (Samenow 2004, xxi). Criminal thinking is different from a very early age. In general, criminals think concretely rather than abstractly; are impulsive, irresponsible, and self-centered; and are motivated by anger or fear. These characteristics describe a person with a “criminal personality” who is difficult to change or rehabilitate. These underlying psychological emotions lead the criminal to view him- or herself as being worthless and to feel that others may come to see him or her the same way and that the condition is permanent (this is analogous to labeling theory discussed elsewhere). Criminals thus commit crimes to avoid reaching this state and to avoid having their worthlessness exposed. The fear that it might be exposed produces intense anger and hatred toward certain groups, who may be violently attacked for not recognizing the individual’s inflated sense of superiority or for injuring his or her sense of pride. A second line of cognitive theory applied to the criminology of violence is by Aaron Beck, who is seen as the father of modern cognitive therapy. In his book Prisoners of Hate, Beck links human thinking processes with emotional and behavioral expressions. Put simply, the way we think shapes our feelings and our actions. Beck argues that extreme forms of violence—from verbal abuse, domestic violence, rape, and hate crime to terrorist bombing and genocide—are exaggerations of patterns of everyday thought

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  Criminology

  A Reader

  • Yvonne Jewkes, Gayle Letherby, Yvonne Jewkes, Gayle Letherby(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  5 Psychology and criminal behaviour Peter B. Ainsworth Since the early 1960s, British criminology has been dominated by sociological thinking and approaches. Two different strands of academic enquiry combined to inspire and influence British criminologists seeking a new direction after several decades dominated by psychological and psychoanalytic explanations of crime. The first was the legacy of European founders of sociology such as Weber and Durkheim; the second was the American Chicago School, where researchers such as W.I. Thomas and G.H. Mead developed new theories of socialization, which included researching patterns of criminal behaviour. Since the early 1960s it has been the sociological enterprise that has continued to dominate criminol-ogy as a subject of academic study, as reflected in the vast majority of courses offered in the subject at UK universities. However, given that one of the most salient questions in criminology remains ‘what makes a crimi-nal?’, it is unsurprising to find that many people look to psychology to try to find answers for criminal behaviour. In this extract, which is taken from a wider analysis of offender profiling, Peter B. Ainsworth considers a broad range of theoretical approaches that can be generally described as ema-nating from psychology, although some combine psychological and socio-logical approaches. What distinguishes these perspectives is that they tend to look for a single variable, as opposed to multiple factors, when seeking explanations for crime. Some of the theorists mentioned by Ainsworth have also been discussed in previous readings in this part (e.g. Reading 2). […] One of the longest-running debates in psychology is whether genetic or environmental factors are more influential in shaping behaviour. The debate has SOURCE: From Offender Profiling and Crime Analysis (Cullompton: Willan Publishing, 2001), 23–37.

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