Chapter 9

assumption of offender deficit

The view that offenders who break the law have some psychological deficit that distinguishes them from normal, law-abiding citizens

assumption of discriminating traits

The view that offenders are distinguished from non-offenders by, for example, their high levels of impulsiveness and aggression

Psychological omissions

-little emphasis placed on studies of the strengths of offenders
--deficits rather than positives
-ignore the potential importance of situational and environmental factors for individual behaviour

community psychology

A perspective that analyzes social problems, including crime, as largely a product of organizational and institutional characteristics of society. It is closely related to sociology

levels of analysis

individual level
-individual deficit
the small-group level
-group functioning
-interpersonal communication and understanding
organizational level
-organizations of society not effective
the institutional or community level
-institutions rather than by persons, groups, or organizations
-values and policies underlying institutional functioning

Psychoanalytic Theory

-oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages
Freud
-ID, biological
-Ego, control
-Superego, conscience
--weak, parental deprivation
--deviant, deviant role model
--harsh, unconscious guilt
Warren and Hindelang
1. form of neurosis that does not differ from other forms of neurosis
2. punishment to alleviate guilt feelings and anxiety from unconscious strivings
3. substitute gratification of needs and desires not met inside the family
4. traumatic events whose memory has been repressed.
5. Delinquent behaviour may be an expression of displaced hostility.*

Evolutionary Theory

Darwinian perspective
-altruism, group dynamics, and antisocial behaviour
the human mind consists of psychological mechanisms that have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years
reproductive fitness variance -range of offspring able to produce
Female:
-no risky antisocial behaviour
-jepordize ability to take care of kids
Male:
-competed with one another for mating opportunities
-ambitious, industrious, and wealthy
-more risk adverse

psychological mechanism

an information-processing procedure or ‘decision rule’ which evolution by natural and sexual selection has equipped humans to possess in order to solve an adaptive problem (problem of survival or reproduction)

Forensic evolutionary psychology

adaptive significance of antisocial behaviour

Theories of Moral Development

Jean Piaget (1932)
-how kids develop rules for games they play
Kolhberg
-6 stages, 84 males over years
Gilligan
-doesn't take into account the female caregiving mentality

Empathy
cognitive -understand
affective -share
Shame
-violates society's values
Guilt
-violates own values

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

Preconventional -egocentric (11)
-Punishment
-Instrumental hedonism
Conventional -expectations
-Approval of others
-Authority maintaining morality
Postconventional -universally (20)
-Democratically accepted law
-Principles of conscience

Eysenck’s Theory of Crime and Personality

personality characteristics are related to criminal behaviour
-classical conditioning
Extroversion -highly sociable, impulsive, and aggressive people
Neuroticism -anxiety, restlessness, and other emotional responses
Psychoticism -cold, impersonal, hostile, lacking in sympathy, unfriendly,
untrustful, odd, unemotional, unhelpful, antisocial, lacking in human feelings, inhumane, generally bloody-minded, lacking in insight, strange, with paranoid ideas that people are against him.

Social Learning Theory

individual behaviour
- environment’s influence, individual’s social conditions
- Cognitive functioning
Modelling -direct experience or by observing the behaviour of others
-vicarious learning

Bandura (1986)

aggressive behaviour:
family
subcultural influences
symbolic modelling
deterrence:
legal sanction
social sanction
self-sanction

Operant Conditioning -B.F. Skinner

rewards and punishments to increase the probability or frequency of a given response
shaping - rewarding approximations of some target behaviour until the behaviour gradually progresses to the desired response

Achievement Place

live in a residence with trained “houseparents.”
-token economy system in which points can be earned (or lost)
-short-term positive effects

Antisocial Personality

antisocial personality disorder, sociopathy moral insanity, antisocial personality, and psychopathy

Will Baker

brutally and savagely killed a fellow bus passenger in July 2008
-beheaded, cannibalized, dismembered
NCRMD -unable to differentiate between right and wrong

"Canada’s Ken and Barbie Killers”—Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka

grotesque rape and murder of three young women
-own sister
both psychopaths or women forced to take part

Clifford Olson

torture and killing of 11 boys and girls
- $100,000 to locate bodies
-sending them letters with comments about the murders of their children.
-full of himself