TURNING TO CRIME

1
TURNING TO CRIME

• COGNITION
• the role of thought in crime.

2
Determinism vs Free Will

• Can you help what you do?
• Do you have your own mind?
• Is your fate pre-determined?
• Can criminality be outside your control?

3
Some good films to watch to see criminal thinking
patterns in action

• Goodfellas
• The Godfather
• This is England
• The Departed

4
Criminal thinking patterns

• Tell me if any of these acts are okay
• 1 Mugging an old lady.
• 2 Stealing a car.
• 3 Killing your spouse in a jealous rage.
• 4 Shoplifting an item under 10 in value.
• 5 Giving a false address in order to get your
  child into the school of your choice.
• 6 Killing at least 13 women because the voices in
  your head told you to do so.

5
Bad? Or mad?

• Actus reus the act of committing a crime (ie
  you are definitely guilty of the action involved
  in the crime).
• Mens rea the 'free will' element of the crime
  (ie did you realise what you were doing, were you
  responsible for your actions?)

6
Diminished responsibility

• What's your understanding of this legal term?

7
Peter Sutcliffe and mens rea

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v8niHc4bB9Bsfeature
  playerembedded

8
Diminished responsibility

• Homicide act (1957)
• When an individual is suffering from an
  abnormality of mind which substantially impairs
  the responsibility of acts or omissions.
• can include extreme anger, emotional imbalance,
  intoxication as well as mental illness.
• Defence must prove a defect of reason at time of
  the offence.

9
Criminal thinking patterns.

• Focus of this topic
• - do criminals think differently to
  non-criminals?
• - can criminal thinking patterns be changed?
• - by changing thinking patterns can you prevent
  crime?

10
KEY STUDY

• Yochelson Samenow,
• A study of thinking patterns in criminals.

11
Pp15-16 in textbook.

• Y S have been working in this field cognition
  and criminality for over 30 years. They are very
  interested in how criminals rationalise their
  crimes.

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Before we look at our key study, some
background...

• Their work is longitudnal so has many date
  references for separate findings.
• 1976 240 male offenders interviewed.
• YS found that
• criminals slightly less intelligent than non-c
• in control of lives, crimes result of choice
• distorted self-image denial of own role in
  crimes no sense of responsibility 40 'thinking
  errors.

13
Key Study

• Participants 255 male offenders, mixed
  demographic roughly half deemed insane (confined
  to secure hospital) and half 'normal' (prison).
  All had been found guilty of their crimes.
• No control group of non-c's.

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Aims of study

• 1 To understand the criminal personality.
• 2 To develop ways of treating personality
  disorders.
• 3 To encourage c's to understand legal
  responsibility.
• 4 To develop ways of preventing criminal
  behaviour.

15
Method

• Interviews conducted over a period of several
  years.
• So quantitative or qualitiative data collected?
• Advantages/disadvantages of this method?

16
Huge catalogue of findings.

• Here are some
• restlessness, dissatisfaction, irritability of
  c's
• want excitement
• lack empathy
• are highly self-interested and disregard any
  rules/laws which compromise this
• jump to conclusions and judge poorly
• BUT...they are already in prison, which suggests
  what about them?

17
Yes, that's right...

• As the interviewees were already in prison they
  clearly are
• a) already in a criminal 'mindset' which may have
  been exagerrated by being incarcerated.
• b) they are not very good at eluding capture (ie
  smarter criminals have higher IQ but not in study
  cos not captured!)
• c) they are used to lying/deceit.
• d) most people in prison are liable to feel
  'restless and dissatisfied'.
• e) we don't know what their thinking patterns
  were prior to incarceration.

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Did the interviews rehabilitate the c's?

• In a word, no.
• Only 30 made it through to end of study. 9 had
  genuinely changed the way they thought.
• Techniques used included Freudian psychotherapy
  why do you think YS used this?

19
Problem

• YS had originally wanted to find cause of crim
  beh.
• In interviews lots of c's lied (big surprise) and
  gave the answers they thought would help their
  situation.
• So...YS looked at their thinking patterns
  instead, as this was easier to analyse.

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Thinking errors

• YS now had 52 thinking errors that defined
  criminal thinking patterns.
• Non-c's also make these errors but c's make more
  of them more often.
• But...no non-c control group so hard to know
  extent of this.
• Research evolved out of clinical practice, not
  originally intended as a separate study.

21
HOMEWORK

• Write one paragraph on each of the following
• Why might the public/victim's family object to
  a diminished responsibility verdict in a
  notorious murder case?
• Why is the sample a problem in this study?
• Who would make the ideal control group in this
  study?