Describe and Evaluate the use of Laboratory Experiments in Criminal Psychology (12 marks) Laboratory experiments are used in Criminal Psychology to isolate and observe the effect of one variable on others, thus establishing a cause and effect relationship. For example, if the presence of a weapon in a crime causes an eyewitness to focus on that rather than other factors of the crime. This may effect eyewitness reliability. The dependent variable can be strictly measured, providing quantitative data. For example, in Loftus experiments on eye witness testimony the participants were asked to say if there was broken glass present or not.
From this type of profiling an offender can be categorized as organized nonsocial offenders and disorganized asocial offenders. The killing from theses two types of offenders would produce two different crime scenes, one of complete chaos and plenty of evidence all over and another with little evidence and more controlled. A major benefit from using this type of profiling is that it let investigators know what kind of offender they will be dealing with so they know how to proceed with the case and interrogate them. A limitation from this type of profiling can be that too much attention is paid to the physical evidence and not on the nonphysical (Holmes & Holmes,
If the person did not count upbringing and cognition, it would be up to someone’s biology, as to whether they committed crime. After all it is a known fact that crime runs in families and so if your parents are criminals, you have a high percentage of becoming one as well. In conclusion, the biological approach does provide an explanation of criminal behaviour, to a certain extent. However, other approaches do need to be considered such as upbringing and someone’s cognition, when stating why people turn to
Different sociologists have presented different theories and concepts to explain what drives a person to commit a crime, and research and statistics give us an idea of the type of crimes committed and the places that they’re most likely to occur. However, these statistics can prove to be misleading as not all crime is reported to or recorded by the police. This can be referred to as the ‘hidden figure’, and it differentiates between the official crime rate and the real rate. Despite this, they do prove to be worthwhile in the fact that they display trends and patterns of crime. Sociologists use three different methods to measure crime; each method provides us with particular information and as in all systems of data collecting, there are strengths and weaknesses to the method.
Background Research on Criminology Criminology is the scientific study of crime its causes and how to resolve it. One common theory of criminology is the psychological theory. This theory explains crime in the mind set of the criminal. The psychological theory of crime is basically that some people are born with a mind which is intended to do harm to others. In other cases some criminals are born with the lack of humility, which is the ability to put yourself in the situation of the person who you are doing harm to.
Law enforcers look for suspicious characters and evidence in order to seek out the guilty party. In most cases, there are repeat offenders. Crimes have become so common that law enforcers have gotten accustomed to labeling a specific profile as the guilty party for a crime. A profile of certain types of people identifies
Discursive Essay - Does prison work? This question is far too simplistic for a yes or no answer. Prison has four main aims firstly, retribution; to punish an offender who has broken the law, the punishment will reflect the seriousness of the crime and the level of moral fault. Secondly, protection of society; which takes criminals out of the circulation of crime and stops other people in society from becoming victims. Thirdly, rehabilitation; the use of effective counselling and educational programmes help offenders reform themselves.
I This paper will discuss the process of behavioral analysis from a federal law enforcement perspective, focusing on the psychology behind the formation of the profile, the types of offenders it can assist in apprehending, as well as key examples from history where it helped out federal agents. The process of behavioral analysis has been implemented quite successfully by different departments in law enforcement, and is today viewed as a valid way to greatly narrow down the the suspect pool during an investigation. However, the process is by no means meant to specifically identify the exact person committing the crimes, the profile instead focuses on key behavioral and personality characteristics. In situations where speaking with the perpetrator is possible,
Proposition 2 – Criminal behaviour is learnt through interaction with other people by means of a process of communication. Living conditions does not necessarily mean an individual will commit crime but socialising and interacting with criminal elements may cause criminal behaviour to be acquired. It is the process of communication that is vital in learning criminal behaviour. Example: prisoners exchange information on how to commit the “perfect crime” without being apprehended. Proposition 3 – The learning process takes place mainly within intimate, personal groups Family, friends and peers forms the most important and
First I would like to start by giving a brief definition of what or better said – how, criminology differs from victimology. Criminology is more concerned with the origin of crime along the extent and nature of crime. Criminology places an emphasis on studying the offender, the crimes, and the motives behind the crime. It is also the study of how the public and criminal justice system responds to the offender. Victimology plays a very important role in criminology and is used to determine what the victim’s behavior has to do with their risk of being victimized.