WEEK TWENTY-FIVE PART 2 - FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY

Forensic Psychology

Profiling

  • Forensic psychology helps identify suspects using profiling.
  • Two broad approaches:
    • Top-down: Fits evidence into categories.
    • Bottom-up: Builds a unique picture from all evidence.
Top-Down Approach
  • Based on categorizing offenders as either organized or disorganized.
  • Organized Offenders:
    • Premeditated, meticulously planned, and intelligent crimes.
    • More socially competent.
  • Disorganized Offenders:
    • Spur-of-the-moment, impulse-based, or passionate crimes.
    • Often suspected of being unemployed.
  • Originated in America, rooted in the FBI, known as deductive.
  • Based on typologies derived from evidence, such as psychological autopsies (interviews with known perpetrators).
Advantages
  • Simple: Quickly categorize crime scenes.
  • Practical: Streamlines investigations.
  • Evidence-based: Based on psychological autopsies.
Disadvantages
  • Neglects External Factors: Doesn't account for external factors that may influence behavior.
  • Godwin's Study: Doesn't account for spontaneous crimes committed by intelligent people.
  • Motivation: Doesn't focus on the motivation of the crime, focusing more on who rather than why.
  • May miss unique individual differences, such as intelligent individuals with hostile attribution bias.
Bottom-Up Approach
  • More detail-oriented, building a unique picture.
  • Commonly used in the UK.
  • Relies on crime scene evidence and police databases.
Advantages
  • Evidence-Based: Maximizes information from the crime scene.
  • Unique Cases: Accounts for unique cases without fitting into categories.
  • Statistical and Computational Methods: Uses these methods for profile building.
Disadvantages
  • Time-Consuming: Takes longer to build a profile.
  • Data Dependent: Contingent on data availability and resources.
  • Training Required: Requires additional staff training.
  • Neglects Psychological Theories: Ignores overall psychological theories in favor of statistical analysis.
Geographical Profiling
  • Uses crime locations to deduce information using Circle Theory by Cantor.
  • Determines if a person is a marauder (commits crimes around home) or a commuter (travels to commit crimes).
  • Identifies a comfort area where crimes are likely to occur.
  • Uses algorithms to pinpoint likely home base areas.
Statistical Analyses
  • Smaller space analysis used to identify co-occurring behaviors.
  • Behaviors exist on a continuum rather than in broad categories.
Case Study: Burglaries in an Affluent Area
  • Scenario: Burglaries occur in an affluent area on weekday afternoons, entering through unlocked doors/windows, stealing small, high-value items.
  • Top-Down Approach: Quickly categorizes as organized offense, assuming offender is employed, intelligent, and socially competent.
  • Bottom-Up Approach: Focuses on behavioral patterns, geographical locations, and statistical analyses, determining if the offender is a marauder or commuter.

Pathology of Serial Killers

  • Serial killers often don't fit typical offender profiles.
  • Early research identified characteristics like:
    • Visionary: Hearing voices or having delusions.
    • Mission-Oriented: Targeting a specific demographic with a mission.
    • Hedonistic: Desire for power and control.
Ted Bundy: A Case Study
  • Targeted young women (mission-oriented).
  • Used charisma to gain trust.
  • Confessed to 30 murders.
  • Made escape attempts but was eventually caught and executed.
Pathology
  • Multiple Personality Disorder: Evidenced by sudden and extreme personality changes.
  • Antisocial Personality Disorder: Lacking in guilt and manipulative despite outward charm.
Kohlberg's Moral Development
  • Preconventional Level: Self-interested and egocentric, focused on getting what he wanted.
  • Conventional Thinking: Mostly for show, without genuine care for interpersonal relationships.
  • Postconventional Thinking: Absent, lacking in broader human ethical principles.

Criminal Justice: Treatment of Criminals

  • Important to consider end goals from the offender's, victim's, and society's points of view when determining prison sentences.
  • Types of sentences in the UK:
    • Life Sentences: Ideally for life, with potential for parole.
    • Suspended Sentences: Often served through community service.
    • Determinate Sentences: Fixed term (e.g., four years).
Reasons for Imprisonment
  • Deterrence: Scaring people away from committing crimes.
  • Incapacitation: Removing threats to society.
  • Retribution: Revenge or punishment for wrongdoings, appeasing the victim.
  • Rehabilitation: Reforming the person through training, education, and therapy (equipping them better for life).

Rehabilitation vs. Punitive Approaches

  • Recidivism, or repeat crimes, is higher in countries with punitive systems.
  • UK recidivism rate: 25% overall, 32% for juveniles, 33% for adults under court orders, 55% for short custodial sentences.
  • Norway, with a rehabilitation focus, has lower recidivism rates (around 20%).
Methods of Rehabilitation
  • Anger Management.
  • Token economy.
  • Restorative justice.
Anger Management
  • A form of CBT focused on introspection and cognitive restructuring to control emotions and reduce aggressive responses.
Three Stages
  • Cognitive Preparation: Recognizing and reflecting on anger issues, challenging irrationalities.
  • Skill Acquisition: Learning cognitive restructuring, relaxation techniques, self-monitoring, and communication skills.
  • Application Practice: Role-playing scenarios to employ learned skills.
Issues with Anger Management
  • Anger levels not significantly different between violent and nonviolent offenders.
  • Studies have not shown a consistent long term effect on recidivism.
  • Even so, people who underwent anger management have shown high levels of self control.
Token Economy
  • Using an economy based on tokens for good behavior that can be spent on rewards.
  • Rewards can include extra time in the gym or snacks.
  • It relies on Operant conditioning to replace bad behaviors with good.
Issues with Token Economy
  • Expensive.
  • Can result in offender resistance.
  • Possible lack of impact given relative reward worth in certain systems.
  • It can often fail in community reintegration once immediate rewards are removed.
Restorative Justice
  • A mediated conversation between the victim and the offender to induce introspection and honest communication.
  • The Process: Facilitated by trained professional, voluntary on both parts, often includes a concrete compensation.
  • Offers opportunity for the Victim to tell the offender about the effect that it has had on them and to hear the offender's point of view.
  • For the Offender, It supports acting for participation, which requires an emotional impact on them.

Forensic Fields in Psychology

  • Offender profiling, criminal justice, and pathology.
  • Eyewitness testimony.
  • Court systems and jury selection.
  • Predictive factors of certain crimes (e.g., fire setting, gang violence).
  • Treatment of offenders (therapies or education).