Violent Offending

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Violent Offending

• Kate Whitfield
• Email K.Whitfield_at_liverpool.ac.uk

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Defining Violence

• No standard, fixed definition of violence.
• It varies across time, culture from one
  situation to the next.
• The definitions of violent behaviour is often
  constructed by society.

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Violent Crime

• Not only the infliction of physical harm, but
  also the threat of physical harm.
• Can be divided into 4 categories
• 1.) Domestic violence
• 2.) Mugging
• 3.) Stranger violence
• 4.) Acquaintance violence

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Explanations of Violent Offending

• Biological explanations
• Psychological explanations
• Mental disorders
• Social explanations

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Biological Explanations

• Explain both the acquisition maintenance of
  violent behaviour through an individuals
  physiological functioning.
• Simply, they suggest that criminals are born, not
  made.

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Biological Explanations

• Cesare Lombroso
• At the sight of that skull, I seemed to see all
  of a sudden, lighted up as a vast plain under a
  flaming sky, the problem of the nature of the
  criminal an atavistic being who reproduces in
  his person the ferocious instincts of primitive
  humanity and the inferior animals. Thus were
  explained anatomically the enormous jaws, high
  cheek bones, prominent superciliary arches,
  solitary lines in the palms, extreme size of the
  orbits, handle-shaped or sensile ears found in
  criminals, savages and apes, insensibility to
  pain, extremely acute sight, tattooing, excessive
  idleness, love of orgies, and the irresistible
  craving of evil for its own sake.

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Biological Explanations

• Twin studies Test if monozygotic twins are more
  similar in their behaviour than dizygotic twins.
• Adoption studies Looked at children separated
  from their biological parents compared their
  behaviour with both their adoptive biological
  parents.

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Psychological Explanations

• No criminal personality
• Aggression violence
• - Low tolerance for frustrating situations
• - Sport
• Impulsivity violence
• - Lack of self-control
• - No consideration of negative
• consequences
• Eysencks theory of criminal behaviour

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Eysencks theory

• 3 separate dimensions of personality
• 1.) Extroversion (E)
• 2.) Neuroticism (N)
• 3.) Psychopathy (P)
• Offenders tend to score high on P, fairly high on
  N mixed findings regarding E.
• Criticism Dimensions have been studied in
  isolation from each other, rather than as
  combinations.

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Mental Disorders

• Schizophrenia
• - Relationship between paranoid ideas
• violence, where the victims have featured
  
• in the offenders delusions.
• - eg. Peter Sutcliffe Yorkshire Ripper
• - However, the majority of people with
• schizophrenia are NOT violent.

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Mental Disorders

• Psychopathic Disorder
• - Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R)
• - Two factors
• 1.) Personality traits
• 2.) Chronic antisocial criminal
  behaviour

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Psychopathy Checklist

• Some of the items on the PCL-R
• - Delinquent as a juvenile
• - Lack of remorse or guilt
• - Early behaviour problems
• - Manipulative
• - Versatile as a criminal
• - Pathological lying
• - No emotional depth

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Mental Disorders

• However, it is important to note
• - Not all people with mental disorders
• commit crimes.
• - Not all offenders have mental
• disorders.
• - Those individuals who exhibit criminal
• behaviour AND have been diagnosed with
• a mental disorder are a rarity, rather than
• the norm.

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Social Explanations

• Differential association theory
• Social learning theory
• Television violence
• Family discipline supervision

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Differential Association Theory (Sutherland)

• Criminal behaviour is learned.
• The learning is through association with other
  people.
• The learning not only includes techniques to
  carry out certain crimes but also specific
  attitudes motives conducive towards committing
  crime.
• Attitudes favourable to crime must outweigh those
  that promote non-criminal behaviour.
• The process of learning criminal behaviour is no
  different from the learning of any other
  behaviour.

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Strengths Criticisms

• Neglects personality traits
• Delinquents select delinquent friends (Matthews,
  1968)
• Explains acquisition of tendencies BUT doesnt
  account for the maintenance of criminal behaviours

• Explains the presence of crime in all elements of
  social structure
• Explains onset of criminality

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Social learning theory (Bandura)

• Behaviours of any sort (non-criminal / criminal)
  may be learned by observing others.
• The individuals observed are known as models.
• Model selection depends on age, status and
  ability to provide social reinforcement.

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Bobo doll study (1977)
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Social learning theory cont

• Models behaviour imitated depends on consequences
  of their actions (observational learning)
• Reward
  Imitated
• Observed act
• Punishment Not
  Imitated
• 
  
• Criminal behaviour maintained through operant
  conditioning (direct learning)

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Strengths Criticisms

• Concedes that different people may commit the
  same crimes for different reasons
• Individuals motivations and expectations are
  based on their unique learning experiences

• Largely based on lab studies

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Can watching TV make individuals violent?
YES
NO
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TV and violence cont

• NOT just simple imitation
• James Bulger murder case 1993
• Mr. Justice Morland I suspect that the
  offenders exposure to violent video films may in
  part be an explanation (Childs Play 3)
• Mixed research findings
• Already violent individuals may seek out violent
  television programmes.

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Punishment Discipline Style

• Hoffman (1977)- Delinquent families more likely
  to use power assertion techniques
• Farrington (1989)- Harsh physical punishment
  predicts violent offending
• Patterson (1982)- Inconsistent punishment
  predicts violent offending

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Parental Supervision

• Monitoring of childs activities
• McCord (1979) Cambridge-Somerville Study. Where
  parental supervision was low delinquency was
  high.
• Wilson (1980) Parental supervision more important
  than parental criminal record in predicting
  delinquency.

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Strengths Criticisms

• Support from studies using cross-sectional and
  longitudinal methods
• Support from studies using both self-report and
  official measures of crime

• Failure to control for variables such as age, sex
  and SES
• Impossible to disentangle genetic and
  environmental factors

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Conclusion

• Each of us inherits a biological system that
  responds in a certain way to the environment.
  However, this response is influenced by the
  environment itself the individuals
  psychological development.
• Thus, any behaviour must be understood in terms
  of biological, psychological environmental
  factors.

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Selected Readings

• Blackburn, R. (1995). The Psychology of Criminal
  Conduct Theory, Research and Practice. London
  Wiley.
• Feldman, P. (1993). The Psychology of Crime.
  Cambridge Cambridge University Press.
• Hollin, C.R. (1992). Criminal Behaviour A
  Psychological approach to Explanation and
  Prevention. London The Falmer Press.
• Hopkins-Burke, R. (2003). An Introduction to
  Criminological Theory. London Willan.