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Defining and measuring crime
Problems in defining crime
Crimes are acts against the law
•
Crime = any act that breaks the law and therefore warrants
some form of punishment
•
Complicated by what counts as crime as this changes; both
across time and culture
•
Crime is a social construct

Offender profiling
Top down approach
•
This is a typology approach
•
These typologies act as a template around the details of the crime are fitted
•
Distinction between organised and disorganised was based on interviews and case
studies from 36 sexually motivated killers including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson
who volunteered to be interviewed about their crimes
•
Organised in the USA during the 1970s when the FBI specialists

Historical context
•
What is perceived as a crime varied across time
•
Homosexual act 1968 in the UK, smacking children was also
illegal until 2004
Culture
•
Different cultures have different views on crime
•
Abortion is illegal in Egypt but not the UK

There were 4 main stages;
1
...

Crime Scene Classification: Either organised or disorganised
3
...

4
...
g physical
characteristics, demographic

Age
•
•

In the UK a child under 10 cannot be held accountable for a
crime
If a 3 year old takes sweets form a shop this would not be
viewed as a crime

Organised

Circumstances
•
An individual’s circumstances might affect whether or not the
act is viewed as a crime
•
For example, a person steals food to feed their starving family
Intent
•
•

Whether or not the person intended to commit a crime
For example, a person assaults another person breaking into
their home

Ways of measuring crime
Official statistics
•
Government records of reported crime
•
Crimes reported to the police and recorded in the official
statistics
•
Published on an annual basis and provide a ‘snapshot’ of the
number of crimes occurring in the country and different
regions
•
Allows the government to develop crime-prevention strategies
and policing initiatives in response to this figure
•
However, much of crime in unreported or is reported but the
police do not act upon it this figure is known as the ‘dark
figure’ of crime
Victim surveys
•
People’s experience of crime over a specific period
•
Crime survey for England and wales (CSEW)
•
CSEW = asks people to document crimes they have been a
victim of in the past year
•
50,000 households are randomly selected, results are published
annually
•
2009; separate survey = introduced to record the experiences
of younger people 10-15yro
Offender surveys
•
People self-report crimes they’ve committed
•
Individuals volunteering details of the number and types of
crimes they have committed
•
These surveys tend to target groups of likely offenders based
on ‘risk factors’ such as previous convictions, age and social
background etc…
•
Survey looks at indicators of repeating offenders, trends such
as in alcohol and drugs use

Disorganised

Crime scene characteristics
•
Evidence of planning
•
Victim is a stranger
•
Controlled
conversation
•
Use of restraints
•
Removes weapons
from the scene
•
Body hidden
•
Little evidence of
planning
•
Victim is sometimes
known
•
Little conversation
•
Little use of restraints
•
Leaves evidence
•
Body in open view

Likely Personality and Behaviour
•
Average to high
intelligence
•
Socially competent
•
Skilled employment
•
Sexually competent
•
Living with partner

•
•
•
•
•

Low intelligence
Socially incompetent
Unskilled
employment
Sexually
incompetent
Lives alone and
close to the scene

Dealing with offender behaviour
Aims of custodial sentencing:
1
...

Rehabilitation/reform: changing the offender for the better so
that they become a law abiding citizen upon release
3
...

Deterrence:
a
...

Individual deterrence: should prevent the offender
from committing the same crime in the future
Recidivism: reoffending usually repeatedly
...

Primary role of custodial sentencing is to reduce recidivism

Bottom up approach
•
Uses systematic analysis of the crime scene to determine the likely personality and
behaviour of the offender
•
Rooted in psychological theory while the top down approach relied more on the
gut feeling or a hunch of an investigator
•
Developed by David Canter
Investigator psychology
•
Bottom up matches details from the crime scene with statistical analysis of typical
offender behaviour patterns based on psychological theory
•
Useful to determine if a series of offences are linked; committed by the same
person
1
...

Forensic awareness
3
...

Marauder: offenders home is in the geographical area that the crimes are
committed
2
...

Cognitive preparation: offender learns to recognise feelings of anger and to recognise
events and situations that trigger the anger
2
...

Application Practice: anger provoking situations are re-enacted in a non-threatening
environment using the new techniques
...
g
...
Tend to be nervous, jumpy and over-anxious
so their behaviour is difficult to predict
•
Psychotic individuals = high levels of testosterone; cold, unemotional and
prone to aggression
Criminal personality = N, E and high P
•
Criminal personality is a combination
•
Neurotics; unstable, therefore prone to overreact to situations of threat
•
Extraverts seek more arousal and thus engage in dangerous activities
•
Psychotics are aggressive and lacking empathy
Criminal beh is concerned with immediate gratification
•
Eysenck = criminal beh as developmentally immature in that is is selfish
and concerned with immediate gratification
•
Criminals are impatient and cannot wait for things so are more likely to
act antisocially
High E and high N scorers lack ability to learn [be conditioned]
•
Process of socialisation children are taught to become more able to
delay gratification and more socially orientated
•
Eysenck believed that people with high E and N scores = NS made it
difficult for them to learn [conditioned]
•
Less likely to learn anxiety responses to antisocial impulses
Personality can be measured using the EPI
•
Notion that personality can be measured is central to Eysenck’s theory
•
Developed EPI [Eysenck’s personality inventory]
•
EPI; psychological test that locates respondents along the E and N
dimensions to determine their personality type
•
Later scale = introduced to measure psychoticism

Psychological explanations: differential association
Differential association theory
A set of scientific principles to explain offending
•
Sutherland; attempted to develop a set of scientific principles that could explain all types of offending
•
Believed there were clear cause and effect links between backgrounds of criminals and non-criminals
•
Social experiences = should clearly predict criminal behaviour
•
Theory was designed to ignore race, class or ethnic background
Crime is learned through interactions with SO’s
•
Acquired through the process of learning
•
Learning occurs through interactions with SOs that the child associates with such as family and peer group
•
‘differential’ association = the degree to which a person associated with individuals – spend time with some
people more than others; SO’s
•
Criminality arises from 2 factors:
1
...

Learning specific techniques [criminal acts]
Crime occurs if exposure to pro-crime values outweighs anti-crime values
•
When someone socialised into a group they will be exposed to certain values and attitudes
•
Values and attitudes towards the law some = pro-crime, others = anti-crime
•
Sutherland argues = if no
...
of anti-crime attitudes than the individual
will go on to offend
We can make a mathematical prediction about committing crime
•
DAT proposes that it should be possible to mathematically predict how likely it is that an individual will
commit crime
•
Prediction = based on our knowledge of the frequency, intensity and duration of an individual’s exposure to
deviant and on-deviant norms and values
Both criminal techniques and attitudes are learned
•
Learn particular techniques of crime from SO’s
•
E
...
how to break into someone’s house through a locked window or how to disable a car stereo before
stealing it
Reoffending may be due to socialisation in prison
•
Sutherland’s theory = account for why so many convicts released from prison go onto reoffend
•
Reasonable to assume that whilst inside prison inmates will be exposed to pro-criminal attitudes and also
learn specific techniques of offending for more experienced criminals which they put into practise upon
their release

Psychological explanations; cognitive explanations
Levels of moral reasoning
Stages of moral development
•
Kohlberg = peoples decisions and judgements about right and wrong
can be identified in his stage theory of moral development
•
Higher the stage the more sophisticated the reasoning
Criminals at preconventional level
•
Kohlberg et al
...
]
•
Individuals who reason at a higher level tend to sympathise more and
exhibit behs such as honesty, generosity and non-violence
Cognitive distortions
Faulty and biased thinking helps criminals justify behaviour
•
Cognitive distortions = errors or biases in people’s info processing system
characterised by faulty thinking
•
Occasionally exhibit faulty thinking, but research shows that this is much
more typical way for criminals to interpret beh and justify their actions
Hostile attribution bias: ambiguous situations judged as threatening
•
Schönenberg and Justye; found violent offenders were more likely than
non-offenders to perceive ambiguous facial expressions as angry and
hostile
•
Offenders misread non-aggressive cues [being looked at] and this can
trigger a disproportionate and violent response
Minimalisation; downplaying the significance of the crime
•
Reduces a person’s sense of guilt
•
Burglars may describe themselves as ‘doing a job’ or ‘supporting my
family’ as a way of minimalizing the seriousness of their actions and their
sense of guilt
•
Pollock and Hashmall; 35% of a sample of child molesters argued that
they were just being ‘affectionate’ and the crime was non-sexual and
36% stated that the victim consented

Biological explanations
Historical explanation: atavistic form
Lombroso’s historical approach laid foundations of profiling
•
Lombroso was an Italian physician [1876]
•
Proposed that criminals were ‘genetic throwbacks’ – a primitive sub species who were
biologically different from non-criminals; atavistic form
•
This laid the foundation for modern offender profiling
Offenders lack evolutionary development
•
Seen as lacking evolutionary development
•
Savage and untamed nature meant that they would find it impossible to adjust to civilised
society ad would inevitably turn to crime
•
Lombroso saw criminal behaviour as an innate tendency and thus was proposing a new
perspective [for his time] that the criminal was not at fault; in this his ideas were
revolutionary
Atavistic features biologically determined
•
Criminal sub-type could be identified as being possessions of physiological ‘markers’
•
Atavistic characteristics are biologically determined
•
Mainly features of the head and face; criminals are physically different from non-criminals
Cranial and other physical and emotional features
•
A narrow, sloping brow
•
A strong prominent jaw
•
High cheekbones
•
Facial asymmetry
•
Dark skin and existence of extra nipples, toes and fingers
•
Other aspects apart from physical features; insensitivity to pain, use of criminal slang,
tattoos and unemployment
Different criminal types have different physical traits
•
Specific physiological ‘markers’ were linked to particular types of crime
•
Murderers; bloodshot eyes, curly hair and long ears
•
Sexual deviants; glinting eyes with swollen and fleshy lips
Lombroso’s research
•
Examined the facial and cranial features of 383 dead criminals and 3839 living ones
•
From this research he proposed atavistic form
•
Concluded that 40% of criminal acts could be accounted for by people with atavistic
characteristics

Biological explanations: genetic and neural
Genetic
Twin studies suggest genetic predisposition to criminal behaviour
•
Lange ; studied 13 MZ and 17 DZ twins where one of the twins had spent time in
prison, ten MZ twins had a co-twin who was also in prison but this was only true for 2
DZ twins]
•
Karl Christiansen; studied 87 MZ and 147 DZ pairs and found a concordance of 33%
for MZ’s and 12& for DZ’s
•
supports the view that offending may have a genetic component
Candidate genes; MAOA and CDH13
•
Tiihonen et al, genetic analysis of 900 offenders revealed 2 genes may be
associated with violent crimes
•
MAOA; controls serotonin and dopamine and is linked to aggressive behaviour
•
CDH13; linked to substance abuse and ADHD
•
High risk combination led to individuals being 13X more likely to have a history of
violent disorder
Diathesis stress model
•
Influence on offending, this influence is likely to be at least partly moderated by
environmental factors
•
A tendency to criminal behaviour may come by a combination of : genetic
predisposition [diathesis], a biological or psychological stressor or ‘trigger’ such as
a criminal role model or dysfunctional upbringing
Neural
APD; Antisocial personality disorder
•
Neural difference in the brains of criminals and non -criminals
•
APD is associated with lack of empathy and suffered by many convicted criminals
Less activity in the prefrontal cortex = less emotional regulation
•
Raine et al

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