Download Assumptions of a Biological Basis for Criminality

SUMMARY OF BIOLOGY
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Modern biological theories of crime all
incorporate sociological or psychological
concepts.
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Biology tends to relate to crime in an
indirect fashion.
Biological factors may be
corrected/modified
OLD Biological Perspective = single
(immutable) factor directly causes crime
Psychological Explanations
that will appear on the Exam
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Behavioral Theories
Cognitive Theories
Personality and Crime
IQ and Crime
Behavioral Theories
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Classical Conditioning
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Operant learning
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Pavlov’s dogs
positive/negative reinforcement, punishment
“Socialization process”
Token economy
Vicarious learning
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Bandura’s bobo doll experiments
Bandura’s Social Learning
Theory
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Criminal behavior is not “abnormal,” but
the product of learning experiences
Aggression
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Aggressive behavior must be acquired
Behavioral repoitoires are stored, used,
discarded…
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Depends on whether behavior is reinforced or
punished
Humans have the ability to reward/punish
ourselves
Social Learning Theories
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Psychological
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Big Al Bandura, Gerald Patterson
Sociological
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Edward Sutherland, Ronald Akers
Cognitive Theories
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How we think (patterns, processes)
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Kholberg’s moral reasoning
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Pre-conventional, Conventional, Postconventional
Faulty thinking/cognitive distortions
What we think (the content)
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“Criminal thinking errors” as negative
reinforcement
Personality and Crime
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Personality = a cluster of traits that are
stable and operate over many domains
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MMPI (Pd scale)
CPI (So scale)
MPQ
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Negative Emotionality
Low Constraint
Personality: The Psychopath
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Harvey Cleckly: The Mask of Sanity
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Laundry list of factors that characterize the
psychopath
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Complete lack of remorse
Above average intelligence
Criminal history, leaching behavior
Superficial charm
Pathological liars
Lack of emotional depth
Psychopath II
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Robert Hare
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Behavioral component
 pathological lying, criminal behavior, “leaching”
lifestyle...
Emotional component
 lack of affection, inability to love, lack of
emotion
Developed the “Psychopathy Checklist”
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Measures both behavioral and emotional
Findings from the PCL
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Roughly 1% of general population and 1525% of prison populations are psychopaths
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Emotional and Behavioral component are strongly
related (but not complete overlap)
PCL predicts recidivism among inmates very well
Psychopaths…
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Played a card game with decreasing odds of
winning longer than non-psychopath inmates
May have unique speech patterns, or “hiccups”
May have lower resting heart rate, cortical arousal
Controversies in Psychopath
Research
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Secondary vs. Primary
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Expert testimony
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Do some psychopaths “feel” emotions?
Not congruent with research, bias decisions
Is the psychopath just a severe
criminal?
What the heck is “IQ”
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Intelligence Quotient
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Alfred Binet (French Scientist)
Developed “mental age”
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Series of tasks (simple math, organization…)
Golden Rules for use
Eventually became:
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Mental age / Physical Age
Search for the “feeble minded,” imbecile, high
grade or low grade morons...
IQ and Crime
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Empirical evidence: IQ weakly but consistently
related to crime (8-10 pt difference)
 Detection hypothesis?
 Class or race bias in testing?
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Two types of bias
True direct effect (Bell Curve)
True indirect effect (Hirschi and Hindelang)