Chapter 9 - Psychological Theories of Crime PDF

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Soc 225 Lecture Notes from Winter 2020 with Sharon Springer...

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- Examines criminality through theories of personality or learning Most theories based on one of two assumptions: 1. Assumption of offender deficit - Something is psychologically wrong with the offender 2. Assumption of discriminating traits - Offenders differ from non offenders in terms of personality especially in impulsivity and aggression Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud: ID: - Compulsive, unconscious, pleasure-seeking - “Sex, drugs, rock and roll” - Born with an ID SUPEREGO: - “What would Jesus do” - Internalized societal restraints - what's right and wrong - Not born with it - it is learned by parents, environment, etc. EGO: - Negotiates between the ID and SUPEREGO in cognitive, conscious thought 5 stages of psychosexual development: - Believed that people are born with a sexual drive and happens in stages 1. Oral (0-1 yr old) - Sexual drive is focused when sucking on mother’s breast - Comfortable, warm and satisfies baby’s hunger - If mother places child aggressively on breast or pulls away before satisfied, the child will develop distrust with boob 2. Anal (1-3 yr old) - Sexual drive is focused on anus. Sexual sensation of pooping and holding in poop - If a child does not poop/pee properly, they may experience anxiety and guilt. 3. Phallic (3-6 yrs old) - Sexual drive is focused on self exploration of body (masturbation) Oedipus Complex: - Boy fanatizes of killing father to have sexual relations with mother Electra Complex - Girl fantasizes of killing mother to have sexual relations with father 4. Latent (6-12 yrs old) - Child works out issues that was not properly worked out 5. Genital (12+ yrs old) - Enjoy “playing” with other’s genitals Thought to develop properly through these stages or else the child’s psychological development will be disrupted and end up wack. - Big idea is repression - hiding/stuffing feelings and memories - Freud believe repression is bad Criminal behaviour may result from:

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ID domination → ID is too strong and overpowers SUPEREGO Underdeveloped superego/inadequate ego - Wimeman (1951) ‘delinquent ego’ - Problems experienced during any of the stages of development resulting in internal conflicts and tensions - Unresolved guilt may lead to criminal behaviour - Punishment may relieve guilt Franz Alexander and William Healy: Roots of Crime (1935): - Applied Freud’s principles to their study of criminal behaviour - Identified 4 unconscious features in prisoner behaviour: 1. Overcompensation for a sense of inferiority 2. Attempt to relieve a sense of guilt 3. Revengeful feelings toward mother 4. Gratification of dependent tendencies by living in prison Psychoanalytic theory and female crime: - Believe that women suffer from penis envy - Women are robbed of having a penis - Every time they have their period, is a reminder that they were robbed - As children, they believe they lost their penis as a form of punishment - Misogyny and sexism and favouritism in middle class values in freud’s work → why is there no vagina envy? - ‘Penis envy’ if not adequately resolved will result in neuroticism or aggression/revengefulness - Criminal behaviour in women owing to uncontrollable rebelliousness and aggression - Psychoanalytic treatment involved working with these women to accept their appropriate sex role as wife/mother Criticisms of psychoanalytic theory: - Not all criminals suffer from guilt or anxiety - Gender bias - Theory is unscientific - Can’t be scientifically validated - Theory is tautological - Eg. aggressive acts seen as result of impulses; evidence for impulses is aggressive acts EVOLUTIONARY THEORY: - Believed that all humans are hardwired for the survival of our DNA which survives through reproduction - Seeks to understand adaptive functions ie survival and reproduction - Successful adaptation sourced in genes - Speaks to the highest correlates of crimes : gender and age - Higher sex drive when younger and can move better, more agile Forensic Evolutionary Psychology: - Men are more aggressive and antisocial as they need to compete with other men to increase mating opportunities and ensure survival - Women are less aggressive and risk-taking as they need to take care of children to ensure survival

- Nurturing children is essential to have survival of DNA Criminal behaviour and evolutionary theories 1. Cheater theory - Person will cheat, lie, rape in order to reproduce 2. The r/K Theory (differential K theory) - r portion -Goal is to have many children (quantity) - K portion - People have few children but invest a lot into their children (quality) 3. Conditional adaptation theory - Believes that all people are born anti-social - The superego needs to develop and evolve out of this anti-socialness - Only antisocial personality traits will reveal themselves dependent on the environment 4. Evolutionary Expropriative Theory: - Suggests that in order to attract people to reproduce, we will expropriate - Suggests that in order to reproduce, the man will make sure that the woman is attracted to them (university degree, looks, personality) Criticisms of evolutionary theory: 1. The theory normalizes, legitimizes and excuses criminal behaviour 2. The theory suggests that criminal behaviour is predetermined-therefore, it suggests little can be done to correct it 3. The theory is hypothetical and difficult to test since it is based on the behaviour of early humans There was a ‘turning away’ from these theories in the 1960-1970s because they promote dangerous policies Evolutionary Theory Revisited: Social Concern theory: Robert Agnew (2014): - Agnew rejected the idea that the only source of human nature is self-interest - Thought human behaviour could be understood through altruism and social concern - Evidence suggests that altruism and social concern also emerged out of the evolutionary process - Survival vs social concern → kindness, - Those low in social concern will engage in more criminal behaviours Social concern theory: 1. Care about the welfare of other - Desire to be close to others 2. Desire close ties to certain others (cooperative and emotional ties) 3. Follow certain moral institutions and punish those who violate them 4. Conform to social norms and sanction those who violate them Example situations where evolutionary advantage provided by social concern: 1. Kin protection - Protecting those whom you love and close to you 2. Mate selection - Picking someone that is kind and loving

3. Reciprocity - Doing nice things for others and they do nice for you 4. Survival - We do everything together and share - Ie hunting together and sharing the meat Kohlberg’s theory of Moral Development: - Suggests that we are not innately good as children and we must learn morals Preconventional (3-7 yrs old): 1. Avoid punishment - Want to learn good because we want to be rewarded 2. Obtain rewards Conventional (8-13 yrs old): 1. Belong and accept 2. Obey rules and regulations - Doing good behaviour to belong and not be shunned by friends and classmates Post-conventional (adulthood): 1. Make and keep promises 2. Live moral imperatives - Adults start to question the rules set out for us - Moral and law do not always go hand-in-hand Hynes dilemma: - Wife is dying from cancer but the treatment is expensive. Should the man steal the treatment or should he let his wife die and obey the law? - Lots of young kids responded that he should not steal the treatment because it is not right - Preconventional - want to avoid punishment Eysenck’s theory of crime and personality (1977): Introversion/extraversion scale: - Where do you get your energy? From people or having alone time? - Highly extraverted, sociable, impulsive and aggressive - Highly introverted, introspective and inhibited Neuroticism/emotional Stability Scale: - Neurotic anxiety, restlessness, risking taking/thrill seeking - People high in neuroticism and extraversion are believed to be more highly correlated to drug use - Emotional stability Psychoticism/Mental Stability Scale: - NOT THE SAME AS PSYCHOSIS - Cold, impersonal, hostile, odd/eccentric, antisocial, paranoid, inhumane, lacking in human feelings, strange - Mental stability - grounded People strong in the psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism are highly correlated to criminal behaviour

Not all studies support Eysenck’s theory - Criticized for circular reasoning and tautology - Lack of empathy used to explain antisocial personality; antisocial personality used to explain lack of empathy Social Learning Theory: Gavriel Tarde: - believed criminal behaviour result of imitation - Imitation more likely when 1. Close and imitate contact - More likely to imitate parents than strangers 2. From top-to-bottom; youngsters more likely to imitate parents - More likely for poor people to imitate rich people, or children imitate parents 3. Superimposition of new acts/behaviours on old ones - If you have a similar behaviour, you’re more likely to imitate a behaviour that is similar to someone else - Bandura experiment - Children watch adult treat doll and imitate the adult - Children tended to treat the doll the same as the adult when they saw the role model first, but those who did not see the adult treat the doll, they were not violent towards the doll Criminal behaviour is a learned response - People alter their behaviour according to the reactions of others - Sources of behavioural modelling: - Parents - neighbourhood/environment - media Violence and aggression influenced by 4 factors: 1. Heightened arousal - eg. after verbal assault 2. Aggressive skills - learned from watching others/media - If child sees father hitting mother, the child is at higher risk of doing the same to their partner - Media influence is more short term than watching parents 3. Expectation that aggressive behaviour will have positive outcome for individual personally - People who think that violence will solve a situation will solve the problem are more likely to engage in violent behaviour 4. Belief that aggressive behaviour justified in circumstance Cognitive information-processing theory: - Behaviour result of complex thought process - 3 step-process: 1. encode/interpret situation - If someone interprets the situation kindly, they will not respond likewise, however if they interpret it as a threat, they may respond aggressively/assertively 2. Search for best response

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3. Act on decision Criminals may be using information incorrectly when making decisions - Ex. misperceived threat - Misinterpreted how big the situation is - Ex II. do not recognize the harm they do to others - Ex. Chris kept punching even though the victim was down and is now dying

Scripts: - Predetermined, stereotyped sequence of actions that define a well-known situation - Scripts become automatic - Ex. we know in which relative direction the peanut butter is at the grocery store Criminal scripts: - Criminals also tend to have an automatic script - Ex. if there is an open purse and no know is there, the criminal sees it as an opportunity, but a regular person will not come to mind that the purse is open - goal/aim - Criminally-motivated perception - Self-serving cognitions to justify - “Her purse was open, what did you expect?” Antisocial personality behaviour vs antisocial personality disorder Antisocial behaviour: - Behaviour opposed to norms/expectations of society - Often causes distress to others Norms: - Established standards of behaviour maintained by society - Informal and formal norms - Ex. parking in handicap parking stall, littering, loud partying inconveniencing neighbours, bullying, destructive behaviours, stealing, perpetual lying Antisocial Personality Disorder: Diagnosing: - Pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15, indicating by 3 (or more) of the following: - Failure to conform to social norms, deceitfulness, impulsivity, irritability and aggressiveness, reckless disregard, consistent irresponsibility, lack of remorse - 1% of women, 3% of men are diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder Psychologists and psychiatrists diagnose people with mental disorders using the DSM around the world - The DSM-5 is a reference to see whether we could diagnose someone with a specific disorder - The first DSM-1 only had the basic mental disorders → depression, schizophrenia - DSM-5 has hoarding as part of mental disorders - Lots of criticism for the DSM-5 - Criticise the pharmaceutical industry to increase diagnosing to sell more drugs - ICD - contains both psychological disorders and biological disorders

Psychopathy: - Similar to antisocial personality disorder - Babiak and Hare and describe psychopaths as a predator - “Use charm, manipulation, intimidation, and violence to control others and to satisfy their own selfish needs” - Like all predators, they like the action and rewards - Less than 1% of women and men with psychopathy Snakes in Suits (2006): - Psychopaths fit well into the corporate well - Risk takers, intelligent, charming, manipulative - Social manipulation makes them seem charismatic in the hiring process Antisocial personality disorder vs Psychopathy: David Lykken: - Antisocial personality disorder may reflect 2 separate personality disorders - Psychopaths are born with temperamental differences - Sociopaths are born with relatively normal temperaments - their behaviour may trace to parental neglect, delinquent peers, poverty, extremely low/high intelligence Robert Hare: - Estimated that Antisocial personality disorder is 3-4 times more common than psychopathy in both prisons and in general population - Psychopathy is not in the DSM - Because antisocial personality disorder does not entirely encapsulate psychopathy, would like the DSM to recognize it as a separate disorder - advocated psychopathy to be a separate disorder (different subtype) Russel Williams: - Ex-Colonel and Commander of the Canadian Forces Base (CFB), Trenton, Ontario - Top pilot and commander → responsible, accountable, smart, successful, disciplined, social, skilled, seemed very normal, work-oriented, a model citizen, charismatic, leader, - However, he was also very secretive, impulsive, as his “successfulness” increased, so did his deviance/criminal behaviour, fantasized a lot, was also a strong leader before the air force (bossy), friend described him as a loner, kept his cards close to his chest, very fit, neighbours didn’t know him - Parents divorced at a young age, and father was not a good dad, his mother remarried a family friend - His family moved around a lot → moved to South Korea and then back to Canada for university - Would commit crimes and just hours later, he would go to his military duties - October 2010 - Williams was convicted of: - Murder: Corporal Marie-France Comeau - Murder: Jessica Lloyd - 2 sexual assaults - 83 counts of fetish burglaries

- (Must have killed 3 people to be considered a serial killer) - Broke into women's homes and stole underwear, bras, etc. - Police described the crime as peculiar - not a “big crime” Factors that didn’t make him look like a suspect: - Police wouldn’t think a high standing individual would be likely to break the law - Generally, women, politicians, priests, teachers, police officers would be overlooked How they caught him: - Driving between Trenton and Cozy Cove and saw woman at house and sexually assaulted her and brought her back to his house to continue sexually assaulting Jessica - A hunter saw a car running behind a house and looked weird and gave the police a description - The police stopped every car that passed the house and tracked the tire tracks - Car matched the description and did surveillance and caught him later on Is Russell Williams a Psychopath? - No - He did not fit the criteria for antisocial personality disorder or psychopathy - He had no childhood history of the disorders Checklist of psychopathy for Russell: Glibness/superficial charm - ex. like advertising something better than it is - Did not use charm to manipulate women. He just broke in Grandiose sense of self worth - thinking you’re better than you are - Russell was already a great person/successful Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom - Very active in work Pathological liar - Cannot lie in his workplace to get to the place where he was conning/manipulative - Overpowered women Lack of remorse or guilt - Wanted to protect his wife after being caught Shallow affect - Military person - emotions are trained out of you. Shockingly calm Parasitic lifestyle Basically the movie parasite. Living off of someone He would meet the following specific criteria: - Callous disregard/lack of empathy for his victims He would not meet the following specific criteria: - Prior criminal history, socially deviant lifestyle, impulsivity, irresponsibility, glibness or superficial charm, lack of remorse and guilt Shows the limitations of the diagnosis criteria...