LECTURE 1: INTRODUCTION

Some important questions:

What is a criminological psychologist?
What does a criminal psychologist do?
What types of people do criminological psychologists work with?
Criminological psychologists do sometimes contribute directly to police
investigations but this is relatively minor aspect of a very diverse field.
Psychologists are involved in researching the causes of crime, rehabilitating
offenders, preventing crime, providing expert advice to law enforcement and
courts and a great deal more. Criminological psychology is just one of a
number of academic disciplines that contribute to policing and criminal justice.
Others include criminology, sociology, psychiatry and law. Each has its own
purpose, assumptions and methods and has something different to contribute
to understanding and tackling crime.
Psychology is, broadly, the use of scientific methods to understand the
behaviour of individuals. The contribution psychology can make to
criminological issues reflects the strengths and limitations of the discipline as a
whole. Psychologists undergo rigorous training in research methods, which
make them well placed to conduct investigations and to comment on and
evaluate the research and practices of others. However, psychology tends to
over-emphasize individual factors at the expense of social ones. In explaining
crime, psychologists focus on things like brain function, personality and
thinking processes. Sociology and criminology are much more likely to focus on
social structural Factors like inequality and social class. Although they
frequently disagree on where the emphasis should go, each of these discipline
complements the others. In isolation, each tells only part of the story of crime
and victimization but, together, they give a more comprehensive picture.

The origins of criminological psychology

Criminological psychology emerged as a distinct field in the 1960s but its origin
much earlier. A key influence was the work of Cesare Lombroso in the late 19 th
century. He was the first to advance the view that criminality is a heritable,
constitutional characteristic. He suggested that criminals were a biologically
distinct class of people who exhibited ‘atavistic’ or primitive features. They
committed crime because they were dominated by their primitive aggressive,
sexual and acquisitive urges. Lombroso claimed that their atavistic nature led
not only to criminal behaviour but also to distinct forms. He believed that
criminals could be identified from their features, such as heavy brows and
strong jawbones. Different types of criminals were said to have different
features, so murders had bloodshot eyes and curly hair whereas sex offenders
had thick lips and projecting ears. Lombroso supported his claims with
measurements taken from the skulls of known criminals. However, he did not
compare these data with measurements of non-criminals and, consequently
did not establish that the features he identified as ‘criminal’ only occurred in
the criminal population. He also did not distinguish clearly between criminals
and those suffering from various psychological disorders. It is also the case that
Lombroso’s views reflected many of the prejudices of his time and he was
overtly racist in linking criminality with minority ethnicity (Holmes 2015). For
these and many other reasons, Lombroso’s work is rejected nowadays.
However, his important contribution was to insist on empirical evidence and (a
version of) the scientific method in presenting his work. This helped to move
discussion of criminality away from moral and philosophical discourse and into
the realm of scientific research.
Another key early influence on criminal psychology was the psychological
laboratory founded by Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig in 1879 (Gudjonsson &
Howard, 1998). Wundt was instrumental in establishing in establishing
psychology as a scientific discipline where the measurement and the
experimental manipulation of sensory and behavioural phenomena were
foregrounded. Wundt’s students studied a range of psychological processes
with application to everyday life. This included topics like witness memory,
which is still central to criminological psychology. One of Wundt’s students,
Hugo Munsterberg, settled in the US, where he advocated for the introduction
of applied psychology to the courtroom. (with limited success) and carried out
extensive research into the effect of leading questions on testimony, the
discrepancies between witnesses to an event, the impact of attention focus
and the misleading nature of witness confidence, all of which remain current
topics of interest (Memon et al., 2008). However, while psychologists
researched and commented on crime and related topics throughout the 20 th
century, it was not until the 1960s that criminological psychology emerged as a
distinct branch of psychology.
Applying psychological principles to crime
Criminological psychology is an example of ‘applied’ rather than ‘pure’
psychology. Pure psychology refers to the type of research usually carried out
by academics in universities pursuing answers to questions about the basic
processes of thinking and behaviour. Although academic psychologist may also
be interested in questions about ‘real-world’ processes, they tend to carry out
their investigations in the laboratory. This has the advantage of controlling for
the influence of nuisance and confounding variables encountered in real-life
situations. The researcher can create her own ‘micro-world’ where every
variable of interest can be isolated and its effect examined free of other
influences. Pure researchers usually belong to a theoretical tradition that
influences the types of questions that interest them and the way they go about
answering them. For example, cognitive psychologists typically use laboratory
experiments to investigate phenomena like attention, memory and problem
solving. This all done without necessarily considering how such processes
might operate in real life settings.
In criminological psychology, theories and research findings from pure
psychology are applied to questions raised by real-life legal and criminal
problems.
In criminological psychology, theories and research findings from pure
psychology are applied to the questions raised by real-life legal and criminal
problems. The pure theoretical approaches can be applied to crime and
criminal justice in a number of ways (see Table 1.1).

TABLE 1.1 Examples of pure psychology applied to criminal questions

Pure psychology areas Criminal psychology topics

Cognitive psychology studies mental The distorting effect of

processes including perception, perceptual, attentional and
attention, memory and problem solving. memory processes on
witness testimony (e.g. the
effect of leading
questions); techniques to
improve witness accuracy
 (e.g. cognitive
interviewing); criminal
decision making (e.g.
rational choice theory)
Social psychology studies social interaction Social influences on
and the effect of situational and the effect criminal behaviour (e.g.
of situational and group influences on behaviour. gang membership and
learning from the peer
group); group decision
making by juries.
Developmental psychology studies changes in The role of parental
psychological attributes over life span, for example, the attachment and early
development of moral reasoning and personality and adverse experiences in
the influence of parenting and other environmental criminal behaviour ; the
factors on development. effect of victimization on
child development;
developmental crime
prevention.
Learning theory studies how the environment shapes The role of learning from
behaviour the family or peer group in
offending; the use of
techniques to modify the
behaviour of offenders.
Biopsychology studies the influence of physiological The role of genetics, brain
processes on behaviour, including the workings of the structure and functioning
nervous system and the influence of genetics on and neurochemistry in
behaviour. offending.

Forensic psychology
The terms criminological, forensic, criminal and legal psychology are often used
interchangeably, which can be confusing. Criminological, criminal and legal
psychology all refer in general way the application of psychology to crime and
the law. Forensic psychology, however has a restricted meaning. Forensic
psychology denotes expert professional knowledge of psychology as it applies
to the courts and legal processes. The majority of forensic psychologists work
within the court and prison system, giving expert evidence, advising courts and
parole boards, designing and implementing offender rehabilitation
programmes and doing research into offending and rehabilitation. In the UK,
‘forensic psychologist’ is a legally protected title: a person may only use it if he
has completed an approved course of study and accreditation and has been
granted a licence to practice by the Health and Care Professions Council
(HCPC). Anyone who calls himself a forensic psychologist but is not registered
with the HCPC is breaking the law and may be prosecuted.
Forensic psychologists may find themselves doing a great range of activities. In
their clinical role, they may be asked to psychologically assess individuals who
come into contact with the authorities and advise those authorities
accordingly. For example, Brown (1997) describes a case in which an
adolescent complained to the police that she was receiving frequent, indecent
phone calls. Despite continuous monitoring of the phone line, nothing was
intercepted. She then alleged that her property was being smeared with paint
and some items were shown to the police, damaged as described. She became
rather belligerent at the police station and considerable time was spent in
enquiries. A forensic psychologist was asked to provide an assessment as to
whether the complainant was manufacturing the evidence in order to satisfy
some psychological need. The result of the assessment confirmed the police’s
suspicion that she had fabricated the incidents.
In their experimental role, a forensic psychologist might be asked to
investigate questions relating to evidence presented in a criminal case. Brown
(1997) gives the example of a case in which three motorcyclists were charged
with causing the death by dangerous driving of two other riders. The case
hinged on a claim by a police officer that he had seen the motorcyclists
speeding and had taken their number plates. But was it really possible to recall
four muddy number plates, two and a half inches high, at a distance of 90
yards? Psychologists set up a laboratory experiment in which 100 participants
were asked to identify four sets of number plates. These were presented in a
degraded form to mimic the real conditions. They found that a few participants
could recall one number plate but none could recall all four. Although this cast
doubt on the eyewitness evidence given by the police officer, the jury was not
convinced and all three of the motorcyclists were convicted.
Aims of the course
The aim of the course is to introduce to the students to a wide range of
psychological research into crime. It will address the basic questions about
how crime is defined and measured and outlines some research on
victimization. It will also look into the explanations of offending including
biological, psychological and social causes. It will also consider how
psychological issues come to bear on police investigations through an
examination of how evidence is processed, how police interview witnesses and
suspects, and the controversial area of offender profiling. It will also look into
how psychological processes affect witness memory, outlines the psychological
process that affect what happens in the courtroom, with particular emphasis
on how juries reach their verdicts. The course also looks into what happens to
convicted offenders through an examination of prison and other alternatives.
The course also extends into offender rehabilitation and the contribution of
psychology to crime prevention. It also looks into two areas of current interest,
terrorism and cybercrime. Finally, it explores a range of critical perspectives on
criminological psychology that offer alternative views to the mainstream one
that dominates the field.