SUMMARY OF BIOLOGY Modern biological theories of crime all incorporate sociological or psychological concepts. 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 Behavioral Theories Cognitive Theories Personality and Crime IQ and Crime

Behavioral Theories Classical Conditioning Pavlov’s dogs Operant learning positive/negative reinforcement, punishment “Socialization process” Token economy Vicarious learning Bandura’s bobo doll experiments

Criminal behavior is not “abnormal,” but the product of learning experiences Aggression Aggressive behavior must be acquired Behavioral repoitoires are stored, used, discarded… Depends on whether behavior is reinforced or punished Humans have the ability to reward/punish ourselves Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

Social Learning Theories Psychological Big Al Bandura, Gerald Patterson Sociological Edward Sutherland, Ronald Akers

Cognitive Theories How we think (patterns, processes) Kholberg’s moral reasoning Pre-conventional, Conventional, Post- conventional Faulty thinking/cognitive distortions What we think (the content) “Criminal thinking errors” as negative reinforcement

Personality and Crime Personality = a cluster of traits that are stable and operate over many domains MMPI (Pd scale) CPI (So scale) MPQ Negative Emotionality Low Constraint

Personality: The Psychopath Harvey Cleckly: The Mask of Sanity Laundry list of factors that characterize the psychopath Complete lack of remorse Above average intelligence Criminal history, leaching behavior Superficial charm Pathological liars Lack of emotional depth

Psychopath II Robert Hare Behavioral component pathological lying, criminal behavior, “leaching” lifestyle... Emotional component lack of affection, inability to love, lack of emotion Developed the “Psychopathy Checklist ” Measures both behavioral and emotional

Findings from the PCL Roughly 1% of general population and % of prison populations are psychopaths Emotional and Behavioral component are strongly related (but not complete overlap) PCL predicts recidivism among inmates very well Psychopaths… 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 Secondary vs. Primary Do some psychopaths “feel” emotions? Expert testimony Not congruent with research, bias decisions Is the psychopath just a severe criminal?

What the heck is “IQ” Intelligence Quotient Alfred Binet (French Scientist) Developed “mental age” Series of tasks (simple math, organization…) Golden Rules for use Eventually became: Mental age / Physical Age Search for the “feeble minded,” imbecile, high grade or low grade morons...

IQ and Crime Empirical evidence: IQ weakly but consistently related to crime (8-10 pt difference) Detection hypothesis? Class or race bias in testing? Two types of bias True direct effect (Bell Curve) True indirect effect (Hirschi and Hindelang)