1. 6
Psychological and Psychiatric Foundations of Criminal Behavior

2. Principles of Psychological and Psychiatric Theories
Forensic psychology
The application of the science and profession of psychology to questions and issues relating to law and the legal system (also called criminal psychology)
continued on next slide

3. Principles of Psychological and Psychiatric Theories
Forensic psychiatry
A medical subspecialty applying psychiatry to the needs of crime prevention and solution, criminal rehabilitation, and issues of the criminal law
continued on next slide

4. Principles of Psychological and Psychiatric Theories
The individual is the primary unit of analysis
Personality is the major motivational element
Crimes result from abnormal, dysfunctional, or inappropriate mental processes within the personality
continued on next slide

5. Principles of Psychological and Psychiatric Theories
Criminal behavior may be purposeful insofar as it addresses certain felt needs
Normality is generally defined by social consensus
Defective, or abnormal, mental processes may have a variety of causes

6. History of Psychological Theories
Key ideas characterizing early psychological theories
Personality
Behaviorism/behavioral conditioning
Psychoanalytic theory – an outgrowth of personality theory

7. Personality Disturbances
Psychopathology
Any psychological disorder that causes distress for an individual or for those in the individual's life
Psychopathy
A specific and distinctive type of psychopathology

8. The Psychopath
Personality disorder characterized by antisocial behavior and lack of sympathy, empathy, embarrassment
Hervey M. Cleckley – developed the concept of a psychopathic personality
Psychopath as “moral idiot”
Poverty of affect – inability to accurately imagine how others think and feel

9. Types of Psychopaths Primary psychopaths Secondary psychopaths
Born with psychopathic personalities
Secondary psychopaths
Born with a “normal” personality but develop psychopathic tendencies due to personal experiences
continued on next slide

10. Types of Psychopaths Charismatic psychopaths Distempered psychopaths
Charming, attractive, habitual liars
Distempered psychopaths
Easily offended, fly into rages with slight provocation

11. The Psychopath Psychopathy Checklist (PCL)
definitive modern measure of psychopathy
Recent research suggests psychopaths do know the difference between right and wrong
Recent study of adolescent psychopaths found intensive treatment was linked to reduced violent recidivism

12. Antisocial Personality Disorder
Antisocial/asocial personality
Individuals who are basically unsocialized and whose behavior patterns bring them into repeated conflicts with society
Individuals who exhibit an antisocial personality are said to be suffering from antisocial personality disorder (ASPD)
continued on next slide

13. Antisocial Personality Disorder
Causes unclear
Somatogenic causes
Psychogenic causes

14. Trait Theory
Eysenck explained crime as result of fundamental personality traits
Introversion/extraversion
Neuroticism/emotional stability
Psychoticism
Personality stable throughout life, largely determined by genetics
Psychoticism closely correlated with criminality

15. Figure Selected Characteristics of the Psychopathic Personality Source: Schmalleger, Frank J., Criminology. Printed and Electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

16. Cognitive Theories
Learning theories – examine thought processes and try to explain how people
Learn to solve problems
Perceive and interpret the social environment
Multiple branches

17. Moral Development Theory
Jean Piaget – human thinking goes through stages of development
Sensory-motor stage
Preoperational stage
Concrete operational stage
Formal operational stage
Child moves from moral absolutism to moral relativism
continued on next slide

18. Moral Development Theory
Kohlberg said preference for higher levels of moral thinking universal in humans
Research shows offenders have less ability in making moral judgments
continued on next slide

19. Figure 6-4 Kohlberg’s Six Stages of Moral Development

20. Cognitive Information-Processing Theory
Study of human perceptions, information processing, decision making
Violent individuals may be using information incorrectly when making decisions
continued on next slide

21. Cognitive Information-Processing Theory
Script theory – generalized knowledge about specific types of situations stored in the mind
Career offenders develop scripts to guide them through criminal activity
Criminal scripts help form criminal identity

22. The Criminal Mind-Set
Criminals make different assumptions about living and behaving than noncriminals
Criminal personality develops early in childhood, includes ways of thinking characteristic of many types of criminals but not shared by noncriminals

23. The Psychoanalytic Perspective – Criminal Behavior as Maladaptation
Psychiatric criminology envisions a complex set of drives and motives that operate from within the personality to determine behavior
Sigmund Freud – psychoanalysis
Criminal behavior is maladaptive, the product of inadequacies in the offender's personality

24. Figure The Psychoanalytic Structure of Personality Source: Schmalleger, Frank J., Criminology. Printed and Electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

25. The Psychoanalytic Perspective
Violent criminal behavior dominated by the id, leaving offenders unable to control impulsive and pleasure-seeking drives
Repressed needs provide another path to criminality
Many criminals have a secret need to be punished

26. The Psychotic Offender
Psychosis
mental illness characterized by a lack of contact with reality
Characteristics of psychotic individuals
A grossly distorted conception of reality
Inappropriate moods and mood swings
Marked inefficiency in getting along with others and caring for oneself
continued on next slide

27. The Psychotic Offender
Schizophrenics and paranoid schizophrenics

28. Frustration-Aggression Theory
Freud
Aggression is a natural response to frustration and limitations
continued on next slide

29. Frustration-Aggression Theory
Direct aggression toward others is the most likely consequence of frustration
Aggression can be manifested in socially acceptable ways or engaged in vicariously by watching others act aggressively (displacement)

30. Crime as Adaptation Crime as an adaptation to life's stresses
Alloplastic adaptation
Crime reduces stresses by producing changes in the environment
Autoplastic adaptation
Crime leads to stress reduction as a result of internal changes in beliefs and value systems
Stress as a causative agent in crime commission

31. Criminogenic Needs Criminogenic Needs
Dynamic attributes of offenders and their circumstances associated with rates of recidivism
May not be actual needs but rather psychological symptoms of maladaptive functioning

32. Attachment Theory
Healthy personality development requires that children have a close, continuous relationship with their mothers
continued on next slide

33. Attachment Theory Forms of attachment:
Secure attachment (a healthy form)
Anxious-avoidant attachment
Anxious-resistant attachment
Difficulties in childhood appear to produce criminality later in life

34. Behavior Theory Pavlov Classical conditioning
behavior can be conditioned or shaped
Classical conditioning
behavior can be predictably changed by association with external changes in the surrounding environment

35. Behavioral Conditioning
Operant behavior – behavior choices operate on the surrounding environment to produce consequences
Rewards increase the frequency of behavior
Punishments decrease frequency of behavior
continued on next slide

36. Behavioral Conditioning
Major determinants of behavior exist in the environment, not in the individual
People can be conditioned to respond with prosocial or antisocial behavior

37. Social Cognition and the Role of Modeling
Gabriel Tarde's three laws of imitation:
People in close contact tend to imitate each other's behavior
Imitation moves from the top down
New acts and behaviors either reinforce or replace old ones

38. Social Cognition Theory
Albert Bandura
Everyone is capable of aggression but must learn how to behave aggressively
Key ideas: observation, imitation, modeling
continued on next slide

39. Social Cognition Theory
Most behavior learned by observing and modeling
Aggression can be provoked through assaults, verbal threats, thwarting hopes, obstructing goals
Disengagement allows people who devalue aggression to engage in it

40. Policy and Treatment Implications
Correctional psychology
Concerned with diagnosis and classification, treatment, rehabilitation of offenders
Some of the most successful treatments emphasize changing offender personality characteristics, such as impulsivity

41. Cognitive Behavioral Intervention
Offenders need to acquire better social skills to become more prosocial
Lets offenders modify their cognitive processes to control themselves, interact positively with others
Target offender's environment, behavioral responses skill development
Increase reasoning skills, problem-solving skills, expand empathy

42. Assessing Dangerousness
Selective incapacitation
Based on the notion of career criminality
Protect society by incarcerating most dangerous individuals
Use of psychological techniques to identify future offenders and those likely to reoffend
continued on next slide

43. Assessing Dangerousness
Strategy depends on accurately identifying potentially dangerous offenders
Risk assessment/classification tools continually being developed, improved

44. Predicting Criminality
Recent study found strong relationship between childhood behavioral difficulties and later problem behavior
Prediction requires more than generalities – difference between predicting percentage of people in a population who will be criminals and predicting which individuals will violate the law

45. Critique of Psychological and Psychiatric Theories of Crime
Theories criticized for failing to consider social or environmental conditions that produce crime
Idea of moral reasoning sense puts loss of control within individual – physical/social barriers to crime may be more effective
Individual theories have also been criticized on various levels

46. Criminal Psychological Profiling
Based on idea that behavioral clues left at crime scene may reflect offender's personality
Assist police investigators
continued on next slide

47. Criminal Psychological Profiling
Profiling techniques used in hostage negotiation, contributed to criminological literature
Some psychologists discount value of profiling

48. Insanity and the Law Insanity M'Naughten Rule
Legal concept, refers to type of defense allowed in criminal courts
M'Naughten Rule
Individuals cannot be held criminally responsible if they did not know what they were doing or did not know that what they were doing was wrong
continued on next slide

49. Insanity and the Law Irresistible-Impulse Test
Defendant is not guilty if by virtue of his/her mental state s/he was unable to resist committing the action

50. Guilty But Mentally Ill
Individual can be held responsible for a criminal act, even though a degree of mental incompetence is present
Requirements for verdict
All required statutory elements proven
Defendant found mentally ill at time of the crime
Defendant not found legally insane at time of the crime
continued on next slide

51. Guilty But Mentally Ill
GBI offenders sent to psychiatric hospital for treatment – transferred to prison after “cured”

52. Problems with the Insanity Defense
Must be brought before court, proven by defense
Rarely used - less than 1% of defendants adopt insanity defense, 75% still convicted
continued on next slide

53. Problems with the Insanity Defense
Defendant found NGRI likely to spend a long time in court-ordered institutional psychiatric treatment
Critics question whether idea of mental illness or insanity useful in study of criminology