Transcript Psychology and crime

PSYCHOLOGY AND CRIME
Meet Jared Laughner
• Plead guilty to 19 charges including murder and
attempted murder, including his target, Rep.
Gabrielle Giffords
• Showed strange behavior 2-3 years prior, including
more and more alcohol and drug use
• Suspended from Pima Community College
• Finally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia
KENNETH BIANCHI, A .K .A . "THE HILLSIDE STRANGLER" (PLED GUILT Y, 1 983)
IN 197 7 AND 1978, KENNETH BIANCHI AND HIS COUSIN ANTHONY BUONO WENT ON
A MURDER SPREE, RAPING AND KILLING 10 GIRLS AND WOMEN AND LEAVIN G
THEIR BODIES IN THE HILLS OUTSIDE LOS ANGELES. AFTER THE 10TH MU RDER,
BIANCHI MOVED TO BELLINGHA M, WASH., WHERE HE RAPED AND KILLED T W O
MORE WOMEN -- A COWORKER AND HER FRIEND, WHOM HE LURED TO A SECL UDED
HOUSE. AFTER HIS ARREST, HE CONFESSED TO ALL THE MURDERS.
WHILE IN CUSTODY, BIANCHI FEIGNED MENTAL ILLNESS, IN THE HOPES O F
RAISING AN INSANIT Y DEFENSE. HE CL AIMED TO HAVE MULTIPLE -PERSO NA L IT Y
DISORDER, AND THAT HE HAD NO MEMORY OF THE MURDERS BECAUSE THEY WERE
COMMITTED BY ONE OF HIS "ALTERS." EXTENSIVE EX AMINATION UNDER
HYPNOSIS, HOWEVER, PRODUCED STRONG EVIDENCE THAT HE WAS FAKING.
FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST MARTIN ORNE CONCLUDED THAT BIANCHI'S STORIES OF
THE ALTERNATE PERSONALITIES WERE INCONSISTENT WITH ONE ANOTHER, AND
WITH OTHER REPORTED CASES OF MULTIPLE -PERSONALIT Y DISORDER. BIAN CHI
EVENTUALLY WITHDREW THE INSANIT Y CL AIM AND PLED GUILT Y OF THE
WASHINGTON MURDERS, AGREEING TO TESTIF Y AGAINST HIS COUSIN IN
EXCHANGE FOR AVOIDING THE DEATH PENALT Y IN THE LOS ANGELES CASE.
THE LOS ANGELES TRIAL BEGAN IN 1981 AND STRETCHED ON FOR T WO YEA RS.
BIANCHI PLED GUILT Y TO FIVE OF THE CALIFORNIA MURDERS; BUONO WAS
CONVICTED OF NINE OF THE 10. BIANCHI IS SERVING A LIFE SENTENCE IN
WASHINGTON; BUONO DIED IN PRISON IN CALIFORNIA IN SEPTEMBER 2002.
JEFFREY DAHMER (CONVICTED, 1992)
IN 1991, JEFFREY DAHMER WAS CONVICTED OF THE MURDER OF 15 YOUNG
MEN, WHOSE MUTIL ATED, CANNIBALIZED BODIES HAD BEEN FOUND IN HIS
MILWAUKEE APARTMENT. DAHMER REPORTEDLY HAD SEX WITH THE
CORPSES OF SOME OF HIS VICTIMS, ATTEMPTED TO PERFORM CRUDE
LOBOTOMIES ON OTHERS WHILE THEY WERE STILL ALIVE, AND STORED
BODY PARTS IN HIS REFRIGERATOR TO BE EATEN L ATER. AT TRIAL , HE
ADMITTED THE KILLINGS, BUT PLED NOT GUILT Y BY REASON OF INSANIT Y.
HIS PLEA WAS REJECTED, AND THE JURY FOUND DAHMER TO BE LEGALLY
SANE AT THE TIME OF THE MURDERS. HE WAS SENTENCED TO 15
CONSECUTIVE LIFE SENTENCES WITHOUT CHANCE OF PAROLE.
THE DAHMER CONVICTION WAS HAILED BY MANY AS THE DEATH OF THE
INSANIT Y DEFENSE, AND A COUNTERPOINT TO THE HINCKLEY ACQUITTAL .
IF SUCH A CLEARLY DERANGED KILLER COULD NOT BE FOUND LEGALLY
INSANE, IT SEEMED UNLIKELY THAT THE DEFENSE WOULD EVER BE
SUCCESSFUL , AT LEAST IN A HIGH PROFILE CASE INVOLVING A VIOLENT
CRIME. DAHMER WAS KILLED IN PRISON BY ANOTHER INMATE IN 1994.
Osama bin Laden, the infamous
mass murderer who changed
the world with his catastrophic
terrorist act on U.S. soil, has
been described as half-mad,
half-genius, evil incarnate and
a narcissistic sociopath. Now
that he is dead many wonder if
he should have been brought to
trial rather than captured and
killed. Whatever the outcome
of such a trial would have
been, many in the media have
already labeled bin Laden as
criminally insane.
AREAS OF PSYCHOLOGY
• Personality and crime
• Abnormal Psychology and Crime
• MMPI and the CPI
• Antisocial Personality Disorder
• Mental illness and Schizophrenia
• Intelligence and crime
• Learning disabilities
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES
(CON.)
• Attention deficit Disorder
• Learning theory and crime
• Moral development
PERSONALITY AND CRIME
• Is there a criminal personality?
• Personality: characteristics of an individual that predisposes one to
act in certain ways in certain situations
• Way one perceives, thinks about and relates to oneself and one’s
environment
FREUD AND CRIME
• Freud the first to write about personality
• Believed that behavior is influenced by unresolved conflicts in
childhood
•
Superego
•
Ego
•
Id
FREUD (CONTINUED)
• Crime would occur if:
• Malfunctioning of the id (too much)
• Weak ego
• Underdeveloped superego (no conscience)
• Or, overdeveloped superego (desire to be caught and punished)
FREUD (CONTINUED)
• Contributions of Freud
• Behavior is influenced by psychological processes, some of them
unconscious
• Early childhood experiences are important
• Behavior can be treated by psychological means
FREUD (CONTINUED)
• Criticisms
• 1. cannot be disproven
• 2. focuses on internal factors, excludes societal factors
• 3. focuses on treatment rather than prevention
PERSONALITY TESTS &
CRIMINALITY
• A variety of personality tests have been given to prison inmates
• Generally do not provide a consistent pattern, one “personality
• California Psychological Inventory: they tend to score lower on
Socialization and Conformity
• Lower on empathy scales
COMMON TRAITS
• Hyperactivity
• Impulsivity
• Aggression
• Sensation seeking/risk taking
• Extroversion
• External locus of control
• Inability to delay gratification
PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS
• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
• 550 item T-F screening device for psychiatric problems
• Given to thousands of prisoners
• No single pattern emerges
TESTS (CONTINUED)
• Indicates more psychological problems than in the general population,
i.e., Hypochondriasis, Depression, etc.
• Most common pattern is that of the antisocial personality disorder
(APD), with high scores on scale 4 (psychopathy) and 9 (mania)
ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY
DISORDER
• Formerly known as psychopaths or sociopaths
• Also conduct disorder (adolescents)
• APD estimated at 3% in the general population, 20-25% of
incarcerated prisoners
CHARACTERISTICS OF APD
• Failure to conform to social norms
• Lie/cheat/steal
• Exploit and manipulate others, use people
• Lack of remorse
• Absence of anxiety
• Self-centered
APD (CONTINUED)
• Reckless
• Impulsive
• Aggressive
• Superficially charming
• Inconsistent work history
• Financial irresponsibility
• Irresponsible parenting
APD (CONTINUED)
• Sexually promiscuous
• Poor judgment
• Do not profit from past experience
• Punishment is not effective
• Causes unknown
• Physiological basis?
• Environment?
MENTAL ILLNESS:
SCHIZOPHRENIA
• Thought disturbance
• “flat” affect
• Ambivalence
• Autism (withdraw from others)
• Unusual behavior
• Episodes of psychosis (not in touch with reality: delusions and
hallucinations
MENTAL ILLNESS
(CONTINUED)
• Strikes 1% of the general population
• More common in prisons
• Most mentally ill individuals are not criminals
• Most offenders are not mentally ill
• However, there are some notable exceptions
SCHIZOPHRENIA (CONT.)
• Sirhan Sirhan
• Charles Manson
• David Berkowitz: Son of Sam
• John Hinckley
• Jeffrey Dahmer
INTELLIGENCE AND
CRIMINALITY
• Intelligence: capacity to act purposefully, think rationally and deal
effectively with the environment
• Culture-bound concept: skills necessary for success in a culture
• Lombroso hypothesized that his criminals were “feebleminded”, but
there were no measure of intelligence
INTELLIGENCE (CONT.)
• Binet: first intelligence test
• Used the concept of mental age: if the majority of children of a given
age can complete a task, the task requires that mental age
• He tested children, compared mental age to chronological age
INTELLIGENCE (CONT.)
• Goddard used his tests on institutionalized populations such as
prisoners in the early 20th century
• Concluded that most prisoners were “feebleminded”
• However, when the tests were tried in screening men for the draft in
W.W.I, they came out feebleminded, too!
INTELLIGENCE (CONT)
• Problem: MA does not change after mid-adolescence but
chronological age does. Thus, using Binet’s test, everyone would
become feebleminded
• Goddard’s work was discredited
• It was until until the 1970s that the issue of intelligence and crime was
reconsidered by criminologists
DISTRIBUTION OF
INTELLIGENCE
IQ range
130 +
120-129
110-119
90-109
80-89
70-79
below 70
Label
Gen. Pop. Prisoners
Very sup.
2.5%
0
Superior
6.5%
1.2%
High avg 14.9%
2.6%
Average
50%
42%
Low avg
14.9%
26.7%
Borderlin
6.5%
15%
MR
2.5%
11.9%
FINDINGS
• 10-15 point gap between offenders and non-offenders: 100 v. 87
• Better than 10% of prisoners are MR, while the percentage in the
general population is less than 3%
• Is this because of social class differences between prisoners and the
general population? (SES affects IQ scores)
INTELLIGENCE (CONT.)
• Studies of nondelinquent and delinquent adolescents matched for age,
social class and ethnic groups also find an IQ difference, although not
as large
• Lower IQ scores are associated with higher recidivism among
offenders
• Most of the differences are for Verbal IQ rather than Performance IQ
INTELLIGENCE
• Higher IQ, especially verbal, might mean that one understands
consequences better and have better planning skills--protective factor
• A lower verbal IQ might mean that the person is less likely to use
“internal speech” and be more impulsive (and thus less likely to be
deterred)
EXPLANATIONS
• The brighter might get arrested less often (although self-report
studies still support a difference)
• Higher verbal IQ is associated with better moral reasoning skills
EXPLANATIONS
School problems hypothesis:
Low verbal IQ -- poor academic achievement -- frustration -- truancy
and dropping out -- association with other dropouts, unemployment - crime
LEARNING DISABILITIES
AND CRIME
• LD: academic achievement is not commensurate with IQ
• Most common: reading problems
• More common among males
• Causes not clear--brain dysfunction? Problems at birth? Inherited?
• More common among delinquents: 12% vs. 33%
ADHD
• Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
• Attention deficit
• Hyperactivity
• Impulsivity and aggression
• More common among criminals than in the general population
• More common among males (6-10 x)
ADHD
• Associated, although not exclusively, with low birth weight (5 lbs. or
less) and/or prenatal malnutrition
• Although ADHD gets better with age, 50% show residual signs in
adulthood
• 25% of APD had an ADHD diagnosis in childhood
EXPLANATIONS: LD & ADHD
• Both tend to have more behavioral problems. Whether such
problems are part of the disorders or a result of them, they are more
at risk for behavior problems.
• School hypothesis
LEARNING THEORY & CRIME
• Learning a relatively permanent change, due to experience, that can
affect behavior
• Human behavior is learned, and learned by:
• classical conditioning
• operant conditioning
• Observational learning
LEARNING
• Criminal behavior can be attributed to faulty learning
• Learned an inappropriate response
• Never had the opportunity to learn an appropriate response
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
• UCS---------UCR
• Food---------salivation
• CS-----------CR
• Bell (after paired with food) --salivation
• Punishment--------pain, anxiety
• Illegal behavior-----anxiety
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
• Classically conditioned anxiety results in avoidance conditioning
• Hypothesis: APD lack anxiety because their ability to develop
classically conditioned responses is impaired
OPERANT CONDITIONING
• Learning involves consequences to responses
• Responses resulting in favorable consequences become more likely
• Responses resulting in unfavorable consequences become less likely
OPERANT COND (CONT)
• Reinforcement: strengths response
• Positive reinforcement: receive “reward” increases p of behavior
• Negative reinforcement: remove a punishment when a response is
made, will also increase the p of that response
• Positive punishment: aversive, unpleasant, decreases p of behavior
OPERANT (CONT.)
• Negative punishment: take away reward, remove positive
• Generalization and discrimination
• Schedules of reinforcement and extinction
• Reinforcement, not punishment, is the way most behaviors are learned
• Most powerful: love and approval
PUNISHMENT
• An aversive stimulus that decreases the p of the behavior that
precedes it
• Factors affecting punishment
• Immediate
• Intense enough, but not excessive (excessive results in anger)
• Consistent
PUNISHMENT (CONT)
• Aimed at the misbehavior, not the person
• Must provide positive reinforcement for alternative behaviors
• Is the CJS going to be effective at punishing?
KOHLBERG & MORAL
DEVELOPMENT
• Developmental stages of moral development
• Preconventional: moral reasoning in terms of reward and punishment
• Conventional: moral reasoning in terms of following rules
MORAL REASONING (CONT)
• Postconventional: moral reasoning in terms of what is best for the
majority, or determining which ethical principle is most important
• Delinquents and criminals: Commonly at the preconventional level,
some at the conventional level, few at the postconventional level