criminology chapter 05

CRIMINOLOGY

TODAYAN INTEGRATIVE INTRODUCTION

sixth edition

By FRANK SCHMALLEGER

Pearson Education, Inc.

CRIMINOLOGY

TODAYAN INTEGRATIVE INTRODUCTION

sixth edition

By FRANK SCHMALLEGER

Pearson Education, Inc.

Chapter 5Psychological and

Psychiatric Foundations of Criminal Behavior

Copyright © 2012, 2009, 2006, 2004, 2002, 1999, 1996 by Pearson Education, Inc.Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 • All rights reserved

3Criminology Today: An Integrative Introduction, 6/eFrank Schmalleger

Key Terms

• Forensic psychology:The application of the science and profession of psychology to questions and issues relating to law and the legal system (also called criminal psychology)

• Forensic psychiatry:A medical subspeciality applying psychiatry to the needs of crime prevention and solution, criminal rehabilitation, and issues of the criminal law



Major Principles of Psychological Theories• The individual is the primary unit of

analysis

• Personality is the major motivational element

• Crimes result from abnormal, dysfunctional, or inappropriate mental processes within the personality



Major Principles of Psychological Theories• Criminal behavior may be purposeful for

the individual insofar as it addresses certain felt needs

• Normality is generally defined by social consensus

• Defective, or abnormal, mental processes may have a variety of causes



Early Psychological Theories

• Two main threads:– Behavioral conditioning

The frequency of a behavior can be increased or decreased through reward, punishment or association with other stimuli

– Personality disturbances and diseases of the mind

Psychopathy and mental disease



The Psychopath

• Psychopathy:A personality disorder characterized by antisocial behavior and lack of affect

• Psychopath/sociopath:An individual who has a personality disorder, especially one manifested in aggressively antisocial behavior and who is lacking in empathy



The Mask of Sanity (1941)

• Hervey M. Cleckley – developed the concept of a psychopathic personality

• Psychopath as “moral idiot”

• Poverty of affect – inability to accurately imagine how others think and feel



Psychopathic Characteristics

• Superficial charm and “good intelligence”

• Absence of delusions

• Absence of nervousness

• Inability to feel guilt or shame

• Unreliability

• Chronic lying

• Ongoing antisocial behavior

• Poor judgment• Self-centeredness and

inability to love• Social unresponsiveness• Poorly integrated sex life• Failure to follow a life plan



The Psychopath

• Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) – modern measure of psychopathy

• Recent research suggests psychopaths do know the difference between right and wrong

• Recent study of adolescent psychopaths found treatment was linked to reduced violent recidivism



Antisocial Personality Disorder

• Antisocial/asocial personality– Individuals who are basically unsocialized and

whose behavior pattern brings them into repeated conflicts with society

– Individuals who exhibit an antisocial personality are said to be suffering from antisocial personality disorder (ASPD)

• Individuals with ASPD characteristics are likely to run afoul of the law



Causes of ASPD

• Somatic causes - based on physiological features– Malfunction of CNS

• Psychogenic causes – rooted in early interpersonal experiences– Inability to form attachments early in life– Sudden separation from mother early in life– Other forms of early insecurity



Early Psychiatric Theories

• Psychiatric criminology– Also called forensic psychiatry– Envisions a complex set of drives and motives that

operate from within the personality to determine behavior

– Crime is caused by biological and psychological urges mediated through consciousness

– Little emphasis on the role of the external environment

• Psychiatric theories are derived from the medical sciences– Focus on the individual as the unit of analysis



The Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Sigmund Freud

• Psychoanalysis:Criminal behavior is maladaptive, the result of inadequacies inherent in the personality of the offender

• Psychotherapy:The attempt to relieve patients of their mental disorders through the application of psychoanalytic principles and techniques



Psychoanalytic Structure of Personality



The Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Sublimation:– A process in which one item of consciousness is

symbolically substituted for another– Improper sublimation may lead to crime

• Thanatos – a death instinct or death wish

• Neurosis:– Individuals are in touch with reality but may be anxious

or fearful of certain situations– Most neuroses do not lead to crime but some may



The Psychotic Offender

• Psychosis: mental illness characterized by a lack of contact with reality

• Characteristics of psychotic individuals– A grossly distorted conception of reality– Inappropriate moods and mood swings– Marked inefficiency in getting along with others

and caring for oneself

• Schizophrenics and paranoid schizophrenics



The Link Between Frustration and Aggression• Freud: Aggression is a natural response to

frustrating limits

• Frustration-aggression theory– Direct aggression toward others is the most

likely consequence of frustration– Aggression can be manifested in socially

acceptable ways or engaged in vicariously by watching others act aggressively



Crime as Adaptive Behavior

• Crime fulfills a certain aim or purpose for the offender– The need to be punished– Adaptation to life’s stresses– Provide a sense of power and purpose

• Types of adaptation– Alloplastic adaptation: Crime reduces stresses that the individual

faces by producing changes in the environment (empowerment)– Autoplastic adaptation: Crime leads to stress reduction as a

result of internal changes in beliefs and value systems

• Stress as a causative agent in crime commission– Stress may lead to aggression towards others and oneself– Societal stress levels heighten levels of aggression



Modeling Theory

• The role of imitation and modeling in shaping behavior

• Gabriel Tarde’s three laws of imitation and suggestion:

– People in close contact tend to imitate each other’s behavior

– Imitation moves from the top down– New acts and behaviors either reinforce or

replace old ones



Modeling Theory – Albert Bandura

• Everyone is capable of aggression but must learn how to behave aggressively

• Social learning factors determine what forms aggressive behavior takes, its frequency, the situations in which it is displayed, and the targets selected for attack

• People learn to act by observing others



Modeling Theory

• Aggression can be activated or provoked in various ways

• Disengagement: people who devalue aggression may engage in it by constructing rationalizations to overcome internal inhibitions

– Attributing blame to the victim– Dehumanization– Vindication of aggression by legitimate authorities– Desensitization from repeated exposure

• Theory has been criticized for lacking comprehensive explanatory power



Behavior Theory• Behavior is determined by the environmental consequences produced

• Rewards increase the frequency of approved behavior– Positive rewards add something desirable– Negative rewards remove something distressful

• Punishments decrease the frequency of unwanted behavior– Positive punishments add something undesirable– Negative punishments remove something desirable

• B.F. Skinner focused on patterns of responses to external stimuli

• Behavior theory has been criticized for ignoring the role of cognition in human behavior



Attachment Theory

• Healthy personality development requires that children have a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with their mothers

• Forms of attachment:– Secure attachment (a healthy form)– Anxious-avoidant attachment– Anxious-resistant attachment



Self-Control Theory

• Self control: A person’s ability to alter his or her own states and responses

• Four types of self control– Impulse control– Control over the contents of the mind– Control over emotional and mood states– Performance control



Self-Control Theory

• Gottfredson and Hirschi – general theory of crime– Low self-control is the primary individual-level cause of

crime– Self control: the degree to which a person is vulnerable

to temptations of the moment

• Stability theory: The argument that self-control develops early in childhood and persists over time

• The link between self-control and crime is probabilistic and depends upon criminal opportunity



Self-Control Theory

• Grasmick identified characteristics of individuals with low self-control– Impulsive; lack diligence, tenacity, persistence– Want “money without work, sex without courtship,

revenge without court delays”

• Research supports the thesis that self-control plays a key role in crime

• Hayslett-McCall and Bernard suggest the gender/crime relationship is related to low self-control among males, which results from gendered differences in attachment disruptions



Insanity and the Law

• Insanity is a legal concept – has no direct counterpart in psychology/psychiatry

• Insanity (legal):A legally established inability to understand right from wrong or to conform one’s behavior to the requirements of the law

• Insanity (psychological):Persistent mental disorder or derangement



Insanity and the Law

• Foucha v. Louisiana (1992)– Recognized divergence between law and

psychiatry

• 1984 Insanity Defense Reform Act (IDRA)– Defined insanity– Burden of proving insanity placed on defendant

• “Not guilty by reason of insanity” (NGRI)



Insanity and the Law• M’Naughten Rule:

– Individuals cannot be held criminally responsible if they did not know what they were doing or did not know that what they were doing was wrong

• Irresistible-Impulse Test– Defendant is not guilty if by virtue of his/her mental state s/he was unable to

resist committing the action

• Durham Rule– Accused is not criminally responsible if the unlawful act was the product of a

mental disease or defect

• Substantial-Capacity Test– Insanity is present when a person lacks the mental capacity to understand

the wrongfulness of his act or to conform his behavior to the law

• Brawner Rule– Delegates responsibility to the jury



Guilty But Mentally Ill (GBMI)

• Individual may be held responsible for a criminal act, even though a degree of mental incompetence is present

• Requirements for verdict– Every statutory element necessary for conviction proven beyond a

reasonable doubt– Defendant found to have been mentally ill at the time of the crime– Defendant not found to have been legally insane at the time of the

crime

• Offenders found guilty, sent to psychiatric hospital for treatment – if “cured” may be transferred to prison to serve rest of sentence



Confinement of Individuals Found NGRI• Mandatory psychological/psychiatric examination

and hearing

• Individual committed if release creates risk to persons or property due to present mental disease or defect

• Individual discharged when facility director determines s/he has recovered from mental disease or defect



Social Policy and Forensic Psychology

• Psychological theories continue to evolve

• Focus on using past behavior to predict future behavior– Assessment of dangerousness– Identification of personal characteristics to

predict future dangerousness



Social Policy and Forensic Psychology• Selective incapacitation

– Policy based on the notion of career criminality– Seeks to protect society by incarcerating

individuals deemed the most dangerous– 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control Act targeted

career offenders

• Correctional psychology– Diagnosis and classification, treatment, and

rehabilitation of offenders



Social Policy and the Psychology of Criminal Conduct• Donald Andrews and James Bonta

– Practical synthesis of psychological approaches to criminal behavior

– Not a new behavioral theory, a call for the application of what we understand

• We know something about what works, now we need to make use of that knowledge



Criminal Psychological Profiling

• Psychological profiling:The attempt to categorize, understand, and predict the behavior of certain types of offenders based on behavioral clues they provide

• Based on the belief that conscious behavior is symptomatic of personality

• Offender’s specific activities help clarify his/her personal characteristics, motivations, likely future behavior

criminology chapter 05

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