KMY4043:

Criminal psychology
UNIT 1: AN INTRODUCTION TO CRIMINAL
PSYCHOLOGY
 What is Criminal Psychology
- As a science, criminal psychology is an approach to understand the criminal
behavior of individuals.
- Professionally, criminal psychology involves the ethical application of psychological
knowledge and methods to the practical tasks of predicting and influencing the
likelihood of criminal behavior, and to the reduction of the human and social costs
associated with crime and criminal justice processing.
- The move on to the discussion of criminal psychology which involves the mental
characteristics or attitude of a person or group.
- Criminal psychology or criminological psychology is the study of the will, thoughts,
intention and reactions of criminals and all that partakes in the criminal behaviour.
- “The study of the mental processes, motivational patterns, and behaviour of
criminals” Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 2009, Elsevier from
http://medicaldictionary.thefreedictionary.com/criminal+psychology
 Applying Psychology to Crime

-As with many aspects of psychology, providing a concise definition of forensic and criminal psychology
can be problematic.
- Criminal psychology is easier to define since it is mainly to do with psychological aspects of criminal behaviour, such as the
origins and development of criminality.
- Defining forensic psychology is problematic since it is applied far more widely than courts of law and includes all aspects of
the criminal justice system, including prisons and policing.
- It is often said that criminology is not so much a discipline as it is a collection of disciplines, each of which brings a different
set of assumptions and explanations to a common concern with crime and criminals.
- In terms of crime, psychologist addresses the question: what is it about individuals and their experiences that causes them to
commit crime and/or to become criminal? Psychologists are concerned with how an individual’s biological make-up,
personality, upbringing, thought processes, current circumstances, and so on produce criminal behaviour. Some psychological
analyses examine the relationship between crime and normative factors that are common to everyone’s experience. For
example, everybody from time to time conforms to peer pressure, and this can sometimes lead an individual to commit crime.
Other psychological analyses focus on ways that criminals differ from non-criminals. For example, research might examine
whether criminals have distinctive personality profiles that contribute to their criminal behaviours
- The study of crime has engaged the interest of many academic disciplines. Building on centuries of
philosophical debate, systematic attempts to explain crime emerged from the developing biological
and social sciences in the late nineteenth century. Anthropologists, statisticians, and economists have
contributed to the analysis of crime, but the major theories have come from sociology, psychology,
and psychiatry.
- The interest of psychologists in crime and the law dates from the advent of psychology as an
empirical discipline
- During the last two decades, however, interest in the legal system has surged (Monahan and Loftus,
1982), as witnessed by the formation of psychology and law sections within both the British
Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association, and the publication of specialist
journals, as well as more than a dozen texts addressing psychology and law issues
- Although British courts make less use of psychologists as expert witnesses than those in America,
psychologists have established a forensic role in both criminal and civil proceedings. Other
contributions to the legal process include the selection and training of police and magistrates, the
development of stress management procedures for police officers, and advice to legal review bodies,
for example, on the interrogation of child witnesses, or use of the polygraph in "lie-detection".
- Psychologists and psychiatrists study criminal behaviour for what it reveals about individual human
propensities.
 Approaches in Criminal Psychology by Psychologist
• Clinical: In this situation, the psychologist is involved in assessment of an individual in order to
provide a clinical judgment. The psychologist can use assessment tools, interview or psychometric
tools in order to aid in his/her assessment. These assessments can help police or other comparable
organizations to determine how to process the individual in question. For example, help finding out
whether he/she is capable to stand trial or whether the individual has mental illness which relates to
whether he/she is able or unable to understand the proceedings.
• Experimental: In this case, the task of the psychologist is to perform research in order to inform a
case. This can involve executing experimental tests for the purposes of illustrating a point or
providing further information to courts. This may involve false memory, eyewitness credibility
experiments and such. For example, this way questions similar to “how likely would a witness see an
object in 100 meters?” could be answered.
• Actuarial: This role involves usage of statistics in order to inform a case. For example, a psychologist
may be asked to provide probability of an event occurring. For example, the courts may ask how
likely it is that a person will reoffend if a sentence is declined.
• Advisory: Here, a psychologist may advise police/authority about how to proceed with the
investigation. For example, which is the best way to interview the individual, how best to cross-
examine a vulnerable or another expert witness, how an offender will act after committing the offens
 Psychological Approaches Relevant to Criminal Psychology

• The biological/physiological approach - an approach where biology and psychology are

combined to explain human behaviour, assuming that the brain is the organ of the mind and
also where personality is developed, human behaviour is based on a person’s disposition or
genetics.
• Cognitive approach - this approach suggests that mental processes help us to make sense of
the world, such processes is perception, language, memory, attention and problem solving.
Central to this approach is the idea that people actively try to make sense of their
environment by imposing order and meaning on the things they encounter.
• Behavioural approach - behaviour is regarded as a response to all stimuli. Behaviourists
assume that behaviour can be shaped by a response to a stimulus in an individual’s current
environment or that behaviour can be a result of a previously learned reaction to a stimulus
which they have experienced in the past. Social learning approach - similar to the
behavioural view, there is a belief that people are shaped in fundamental ways by the
environment through the learning process. However, consider that observational learning
plays a large part in shaping a person’s behaviour. This approach believes that people learn
by observing others and because of this, other people in the social environment are particular
important influences on behaviour.
• Social learning approach - similar to the behavioural view, there is a
belief that people are shaped in fundamental ways by the environment
through the learning process. However, consider that observational
learning plays a large part in shaping a person’s behaviour. This
approach believes that people learn by observing others and because of
this, other people in the social environment are particular important
influences on behaviour.

• Developmental approach - this observes how the thoughts and

behaviours of people are rooted in their childhood experiences, in
criminal psychology this often means explaining criminality by referring
to disadvantaged childhoods and considering the nature of children as
witnesses. Having examined some of the theoretical frameworks, you
will notice that some criminal psychologists operate within a particular
framework whilst others will have a broader horizon and work with
different approaches throughout.
 Understanding Fear of Crime
-The fear of crime refers to the fear of being a victim of CRIME as opposed to the
actual probability of being a victim of crime.
-While fear of crime can be differentiated into public feelings, thoughts and behaviors
about the personal risk of criminal victimization, distinctions can also be made
between the tendency to see situations as fearful, the actual experience while in those
situations, and broader expressions about the cultural and social significance of crime
and symbols of crime in people's neighborhoods and in their daily, symbolic lives.
-Factors influencing the fear of crime include (i) The psychology of risk
perception, circulating representations of the risk of victimization (chiefly via
interpersonal communication and the mass media), (ii) Public perceptions of
neighborhood stability and breakdown, (iii)The influence of neighbourhood context,
(iv) Broader factors where anxieties about crime express anxieties about the pace and
direction of social change, (v) Cultural influences, for example, some have argued that
modern times have left people especially sensitive to issues of safety and insecurity.
Three Aspects of Fear of Crime
(a)Affective
• The core aspect of fear of crime is the range of emotions that is provoked in citizens
by the possibility of victimization.
• While people may feel angry and outraged about the extent and prospect of crime,
surveys typically ask people "who they are afraid of" and "how worried they are".
• Underlying the answers that people give are (more often than not) two dimensions of
'fear': (i) those everyday moments of worry that transpire when one feels personally
threatened; and (ii) some more diffuse or 'ambient' anxiety about risk.
• One thus can distinguish between fear (an emotion, a feeling of alarm or dread
caused by an awareness or expectation of danger) and some broader anxiety.
• Some people may be more willing to admit their worries and vulnerabilities than
others.
(b) Cognitive
Concern about crime can be differentiated from perceptions of the risk of personal
victimization (i.e. cognitive aspects of fear of crime).
• Concern about crime includes public assessments of the size of the crime
problem.An example of a question that could be asked is whether crime has
increased, decreased or stayed the same in a certain period (and/or in a certain area,
for instance the respondents own neighborhood.
• By contrast, the cognitive side of fear of crime includes public perceptions of the
likelihood of falling victim, public senses of control over the possibility, and public
estimations of the seriousness of the consequences of crime.
• People who feel especially vulnerable to victimization are likely to feel that they are
especially likely to be targeted by criminals (i.e. victimization is likely), that they are
unable to control the possibility (i.e. they have low self-efficacy), and that the
consequences would be especially severe. Additionally, these three different
components of risk perception may interact: the impact of perceived likelihood on
subsequent emotional response (worry, fear, anxiety, etc.) is likely to be especially
strong among those who feel that consequences are high and self-efficacy is low.
(c) Behavioral
• A third way to measure fear of crime is to ask people whether they ever avoid certain
areas, protect certain objects or take preventive measures. This way, measuring fear
of crime can become a relatively straightforward thing, because the questions asked
tap into actual behavior and 'objective' facts, such as the amount of money spent on a
burglar-alarm or extra locks.
• Although, some researchers such as Jesse Omoregie argue that measuring fear of
crime can be problematic as there are various factors like social desirability effects,
respondents downplaying or over-exaggerating their fear which can affect the
reliability of data.
• Some degree of 'fear' might be healthy for some people, creating a 'natural defence'
against crime. In short, when the risk of crime is real, a specific level of 'fear' might
actually be 'functional': worry about crime might stimulate precaution which then
makes people feel safer and lowers their risk of crime. The fear of crime is a very
important feature in criminology.