M3 OLET2601 Psychology Of Crime PDF

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Psychology Of Crime Full Module 3 Notes...

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OLET2601: Psychology Of Crime - Module 3 Case 3: Sex Offenders For 24 years Detective Lee had been working for the Police Force. During those years, he was promoted from Constable to Detective in record time. Various departments within the Force had requested for him to come work with them. When he decided to work with the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes squad it was not an easy decision. He knew he would encounter some of the most horrific crimes detectives had to deal with. And the victims.... that might be the hardest part. When looking back at his career and some of the cases he had worked on, it struck him that he would never be able to understand sex offenders. He had come across so many different cases with different offenders, different victims, and different MO's. However, he would never understand how people came to commit these crimes. He was reading over three of his most recent cases and he wondered that given how different these types of offenders were, would there ever be any way you could treat these offenders? Where would you start? Case 3: Sex Offenders I Accused: Adam Offense: Sexual Assault, Grievous Bodily Harm At 6 am on Sunday the 12th of October, a police operator received a distressed call from a woman who had been walking her dog. The witness reported seeing the body of a woman on her morning walk. When detectives attended the crime scene they found the naked body of a female victim, barely alive, on a hill behind the change rooms next to a football field. The victim was young, 22 years old, and beautiful. She had been on her way back from a night out when she was attacked. Her face was so severely beaten that she was beyond recognition. She had bite marks all over her body and pieces of her flesh were missing. Her shoe laces were taken out of her shoes and tied around her neck. Her underwear was removed and she had been raped both vaginally and anally; however, there was no semen in her vagina or anus. It appeared that the perpetrator had stood over her and ejaculated over her body. The perpetrator had taken all of the victim’s belongings from her purse and strewn them around her in a circle. It appeared the perpetrator had made some attempt to hide the victim by covering her with branches and leaves and setting those alight. However, due to wetness of the leaves, it never caught fire, and the only result was that the victim had some burn marks from smoldering debris. As quickly as possible the victim was taken to the nearest hospital by ambulance, where she was put in an induced coma in a critical condition.

It was one of the most gruesome crimes the detectives had ever come across. They promised then and there that they would find the perpetrator of this horrendous crime. They were lucky, in a way, that the offender left behind his DNA (the semen) on her body. However, the detectives could not wait until the results from the lab came back. They needed to find more evidence as to whom the perpetrator was as soon as possible, before he could potentially commit another crime. Moreover, the media had picked up on the assault and it was widely broadcast. The community was scared and needed to see an arrest.

When canvassing the crime scene and the surrounding areas, the detectives noticed multiple CCTV cameras. The cameras were located around the football field and in the shops in the nearby streets. They immediately went about requesting the footage from the night. The footage was a major breakthrough in the case. The footage showed the last 20 minutes where the victim had walked: How she got off a bus in the deserted shopping street, and how she cut across a football field on her way home. The footage also captured a man getting off the bus shortly after the victim, who followed her in close proximity onto the football field. Finally, the footage showed the suspect running away from the football field about 40 minutes after the victim disappeared out of the picture. Stills and shorts from the CCTV footage depicting the suspect were released to the public, and shortly after, tips on the identity of the person in the footage came flooding in. Based on the tips, the detectives focused on one specific suspect. The 39 year old suspect had been in trouble with the law before. A lot of trouble. He had been arrested multiple times for various crimes, including assault and robbery. When trying to arrest the suspect, a pursuit ensued, in which the suspect hit multiple vehicles with his car. When the police tried to arrest him, he resisted aggressively, injuring police officers and himself in the process. When the suspect was brought in for questioning he showed no signs of remorse whatsoever. Even when he was confronted with the DNA results (they were a match with the semen found at the scene of the crime). The suspect laughed off the accusations and sat grinning widely for the duration of the interview. Case 3: Sex Offenders II Accused: Zac Offense: Indecent exposure, indecent assault, using a car rying service to film a person Zac was what teachers called a “slow child”. He struggled keeping up in class and his teachers told his parents more than once that he would be better off in a school for

children with special needs. However, his parents rejected the advice. Schools like that were too costly, and Zac was perfectly fine just where he was. As Zac progressed through school, he kept falling more and more behind. The other children in the class noticed this as well, and as a result Zac got bullied on a daily basis. By the time Zac was 14 years old he stopped going to school all together. When asked about Zac, his parents would say he was a “different” child. He would play with the kids in the street when he was younger, but while they kept on playing together as they grew older, Zac kept on playing with other, younger kids. When growing up, Zac was showing age-appropriate sexual experimentation However, when he got older, this behaviour became inappropriate due to his interactions with younger children. It was not just the fact that Zac played with younger children that was an issue. Zac got charged with sex offences more than once from when he was 16 years old. The majority of the offences were related to exhibitionism, and his parents sent him to a psychologist hoping they could figure out why he kept exposing himself to younger children. The flashing stopped shortly after Zac started seeing the psychologist, so his parents considered the treatment done. Unfortunately, even with the visits to a psychologist, when Zac reached early adulthood (age 20), he got arrested for using his mobile phone to take up-skirt videos of girls and women in a shopping mall. While the judge considered it a minor offence, given Zac’s history, she sentenced him to treatment to correct his behaviour. Even with this treatment, three years later Zac was in front of the judge again. This time he had grabbed a young woman's breasts on a train. Given his poor educational history, and more importantly his ongoing sexual deviant behaviour, the judge wanted a clinical assessment by a forensic psychologist. She wanted to know what was causing this behaviour and if any treatment could ever be helpful. Case 3: Sex Offenders III Accused: “Mike” Offense: Using a carriage device to prepare or plan to cause harm to, engage in sexual activity with, or procure for sexual activity, persons under 12. Possessions of child pornography Maddy was eleven years old when she signed up to Kik messenger. She was convinced Kik was the best invention since sliced bread. All her friends were on there and you could send unlimited texts to anyone you shared your username with. She would spend hours chatting with her best friends from school. It didn’t matter that they just spent the whole day together, there was always more to talk about or funny gifs to send. And even when her friends were not online she could chat to bots (who would always chat back), and play games. One feature that Maddy particularly liked on Kik was that you could

share your username to find people to chat with. She had already made quite a few friends using that feature when she started chatting with "Mike". Mike was a 13-year old boy that lived on the other side of town. He liked the same music and TV shows as Maddy, and she got along with him really well. Mike loved sports and would often send Maddy photos of his favourite team. Maddy who was a devoted swimmer herself started to send Mike photos of her in the pool. Mike was delighted with those photos. He loved sports and it appeared he really liked Maddy as well. The more they texted, the closer Maddy felt to Mike. She told all her friends about the sporty boy she had met online. Her friends started to tease her about Mike being her boyfriend, and while Maddy pretended to be annoyed by the teasing, she was secretly a little bit proud that her friends thought Mike was interested in her in that way. Therefore, when Mike asked her to send a photo of herself in her underwear, Maddy did just that. This was what boyfriends and girlfriends did, wasn’t it? When Mike asked her shortly after to send a photo without underwear on, Maddy hesitated at first. But then she thought about Mike and how happy he had been when she sent him the photo of her in her underwear. And how sweet he had been to her the whole time. She would make him the happiest boy alive with this photo, he assured her. Just when Maddy got undressed and was about to take the photo, her father walked into her room. In utter disbelief he stood in the door frame while Maddy started to scream. Maddy’s mother came running upstairs and was baffled when she saw what was happening. Maddy’s father grabbed the phone out her hands and chucked a t-shirt her way. “Get dressed, and come down stairs! We need to talk,” he growled at her. Maddy was silently crying when she got downstairs. Her parents were both sitting on the lounge firing questions at her: “Who are you sending these photos to? For how long have you been doing this? Why???” Maddy was visibly upset and she told them all about Mike, her 13-year old boyfriend who loves sports. Her parents were not impressed. Maddy was not even a teenager! They decided to go to the police. When the parents went to the police to press charges against Mike, they were asked to hand over Maddy’s phone. The police told them they would use this to track down Mike. It was easy for the technical department of the police to find the address where Mike lived, and two detectives were sent over to go and have a chat to Mike’s parents. However, a big surprise awaited them when they knocked on the door. The Mike that lived at the address, and who had been chatting with 11-year old Maddy for almost three months was not a 13-year old boy. Mike was a 63-year old convicted pedophile, who just got out of jail 6 months before. His previous convictions were all related to sexually assaulting children. It turned out that as soon as he got out of jail he started grooming children online. When police searched his computer they found hundreds of improper photos of prepubescent girls. All these girls had sent “Mike” those photos thinking he was a 13-year old boy, not knowing the danger they were in. Case 3: Sex Offenders: Define Them

➔ Introduction When looking at crime as a whole, sexual offenses make up about 5% of the total correctional population in the US ● However the amount of press attention that sexual crimes receive makes them seemingly more prevalent than they actually are ➔ Child Molesters vs Rapists Child molesters ● Persons who engage in sexual activities with persons under the age of 14, although the age varies in countries ● Not necessarily a pedophile ● Comit offences such as ○ Indecent exposure ○ Sexual contact with a child ○ Physical contant with the child’s genitals or viewing it for the reasons of sexual gratification Although crime generally declines with age, the age of child molesters does not ● Child molesters can equally be 50 or 18 years of age ● Most child molesters know their victims Pedophiles ● Abnormal sexual arousal or fetish for children However, there can be sexual offences committed towards children that are more situational than simply a sexual preference Rapists ● Refers to individuals who penetrate orally, vaginally or anally against the will of another person ● Can assault victims of all ages, and can be all ages ● Rapists who commit offences against non-child victims are thought to be younger, on average, than child molesters ● Rapists are more likely than child molesters to show antisocial or delinquent behaviour ➔ Why it occurs Motivations underlying sexual offending can be very diverse ● Sexual offenders may deliberately hurt their victims, convince themselves they are not harming their victims or feel unable to stop themselves Inadequate social functioning appears to play a key role in the origins of sexual offending ● Characteristics of ○ Mistrust

○ Hostility ○ Insecure attachment ● These traits in turn facilitate ○ Social rejection ○ Loneliness ○ Negative peer associations ○ Delinquent behaviour Problematic psychological traits, emotional problems and social difficulties combined → contribute towards sexual offending, which are thought to be a result of poor family environments Indicators such as childhood sexual abuse are found in many sexual offenders’ pasts ● However current research explains that childhood sexual abuse is not a cause of sexual offending ● It can be said that a large portion of the population has incurred sexual abuse and that some of these individuals become abusers themselves Learning disabilities can play a role in sexual offending ● Learning disabled (LD) individuals are disproportionately responsible for sexual crimes compared to mentally ill and normal offenders ● This does not mean that most LD are sexual offenders, just that a large number of sexual offenders are LD ● LD sexual offenders show a larger preference for victims under the age of 11 and more male victims than normally-abled sexual offenders ➔ Treatment and Risk Assessment Only about 4% of convicted child molesters and 7% of rapists are rearrested for any sex offence within 5 years after release from custody ● Treatment appears to be effective, reducing sexual recidivism by an average 37% ● Treatment typically focuses on ○ Sexual interests offence-related attitudes and cognition ○ Social competence ○ Relationship management ○ Self-management ● While most treatments focus on these cognitive-behavioural aspects in certain countries (such as the USA) organic treatments such as chemical castration may also be mandated or recommended in treatment Two major predictors of sexual recidivism for both adult and adolescent sexual offenders are deviant sexual preferences and antisocial orientation Several tests used to measure such risk factors have been developed, mainly to measure potential recidivism risk of many imprisoned offenders ● Many psychometric tests

● Most widely used ○ Structured Assessment of Risk and Need (SARN) ○ Sexual Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG) ○ Sexual-Violence-Risk-20 (SVR-20) ○ Static-99 Psychological measures such as the Penile Plethysmograph (PPG) can also be used to measure arousal to inappropriate sexual images The final risk assessment is based on a mix of psychometric testing and clinical judgement ➔ Conclusion While sexual offending is often seen as a particularly nasty form of crime, it is importent to dispel the myths surrounding the issue We need to keep in mind that the reasons behind sexual offending are diverse and not always malicious, that most sexual offenders do not reoffend and benefit from treatment, and that appropriate risk assessment and supervision can help maximise the effectiveness of reintegration efforts

Case 3: Sex Offenders: Going Further Dr Caoilte Ó Ciardha, a Senior Lecturer in Forensic Psychology at the University of Kent - Sexual Offending; Measuring and Understanding Paedophilic Sexual Interest ● Globally 13% of children will suffer sexual abuse during their childhood ● Science tells us that sexual abuse is a multi-faceted problem and the causes are varied across individuals

● Sexual abuse of children → people use the terms child molester and pedophile synonymously, however an individual who has committed sexual offences against children is not necessarily someone who has pedophilic sexual interests and neither is someone who has pedophilic sexual interests necessarily going to commit sexual offences against children or view pornographic material containing children

Defining pedophaelia ● Not actually synonymous with child abuse ● A sexual preference for children, boys or girls or both, usually prepubertal or early puberty age - WHO ● Doesn’t require any offending to have occured ● It is an important factor in offending ● 50% of sexual offenders against children have paedophilic interests ● 14% of sexual offenders willl be reconvicted of a new sexual offence ○ Individuals were followed up after 5 or 6 years post release

Different factors are important in predicting who is more likely to reoffend ● Antisocial ● Most predictive factors → whether somebody has sexual arousal to children ○ People with a sexual interest in children are at a higher risk

How is paedophilic sexual interest typically measured? ● Self report ● Case history ○ Clinician can use this info to make a judgement call ● Main way this is done is through the use of penile plethysmohraphy (PPG) ○ Measurement of the degree to of which the penis changes in volume or circumference when somebody is presented with stimuli (videos, pictures, audio descriptions of consensual sex, rape or sex with a minor/child) ○ By examining the degree to of which someone gets an erection you can infer their sexual interests ○ Strong relationship between PPG and sexual interest ○ Not always the case that there is this relationship ■ Genital arousal in women → with straight women in particular there’s not necessarily a relationship between hat genital arousal and their self-reported arousal and their actual sexual behaviour ■ In a labratory environement → erectile responses might not match up with their sexual interests because of the context ■ Cases where people have erectile dysfunction ○ PPG currently considered the gold standard but also controversial

When an individual is exposed to stimuli they might find sexually appealing, a whole lot of different processes happen in the brain even before any arousal happens ● Useful to think about - at what point can we intercept those processes, is there ways we can tap into those processes that happen whilst somebody is appraising sexual sitmuli in order to find an alternative way of measuring their sexual interests ● Unconcious processes happening → distracted by an image, harder to disengage from that image and return your attention elsewhere ● Conscious and unconscious processes going on

One way to try and tap into this is through a technique is known as a viewing time task ● Self report element ● Scale of 1-10 how attractive do you find this image

● How long it takes individuals to come up with that answer ● Take longer looking and deliberating about images that they prefer ● When being under a time limit they can consciously alter the amount of time they spend on each image ● Viewing time is a useful task to measure sexual interest in cases where people are not motivated to hide their sexual interests

Drawing on this idea that somebody can spend longer looking at images they prefer ● Reaction time task ● Instead of people being asked to rate how attractive they find an image, they are just asked to find something on an image eg location of a dot ● Much quicker task than the viewing time ● As quickly as you can ○ Degree to which you can disengage your attention from the image and find a dot ● Strong relo w peoples sexual interests

Third approach is an association task ● ● ● ●

Degree to which different concepts are associated Images are presented and words are presented one by one Has to categorise words and images How long it takes them to do it

Pupil dilation Pupil dilates to let more or less light into the eye Pupils dilate with the activ...