College aantekeningen
Lecture notes Advanced Criminology (RGBUSTR011)
- Instelling
- Universiteit Utrecht (UU)
Lecture notes for Advanced Criminology (RGBUSTR011). Includes all 7 lectures
[Meer zien]Voorbeeld 4 van de 35 pagina's
Voorbeeld 4 van de 35 pagina's
In winkelwagengesponsord bericht van onze partner
Verkoper
Volgen
Voorbeeld van de inhoud
Lecture 1: Biological and psychological perspectives on crimeClassical criminology
- Enlightenment and 18th century
- Focus on punishments using a rational approach
- Many legal principles we use today come from this era
- Rational choice (cost-benefit analyses)
- Deterrence
- Punishment should be proportional to the act that was commit
Classical school: child of enlightment
- Late 18th and 19th century
- Cesare Beccaria, Jeremy Bentham
- Legal and philosophical underpinnings, rational and bureaucratic approach to crime
- Crime: result of free will, decision based on circumstances. Focus on the crime
- Hedonistic calculation (we calculate what will give us pleasure, how can I maximize my
pleasure and minimize pain) and utilitarianism
- Punishment: rational, civilized, certain, swift, severe
- Neo-classical school (late 19th and 20th): focus pivoting to liability (and those who cannot be
considered liable)
Classical criminology and rational choice theories
- Influence of classical thinkers (Bentham, Beccaria) – voluntaristic view of man
- Rational choice theory (Clarke)
- Free will and indeterminism
- Cost-benefit analysis
- Deterrence
- Everyone is equal
- Routine activity theory (Carnish, Clarke)
- Motivated perpetrator
- Suitable target
- Occasion
Positivism
‘Positivism is a theory of knowledge according to which the only kind of sound knowledge available to
human kind is that if science grounded in observation’ (Auguste Comte)
- Empiricism vs devine right
- Secularism
- To discover the world using scientific method
- Classical school – approach to punishment
- Positivism – approach to knowing
- Social, biological, psychological sciences
,Science and the justice system
- Strong interest in bio governance is the propensity towards crime coded in our DNA, or can
our biology be used to detect crime?
- Biological advancements: DNA analysis, biometrics, brain imaging and analysis of biological
processes for lie detection
- Psychological advancements: identification, diagnosis and treatment of what is recognized as
a mental disorder
Explanations of criminality
- Several cases in which the criminal had a biological abnormality (illness, accident,
predisposition)
- Brain functions are (partly) localized
- Personality and behavior find their basis in the brain
- Focal damage leads to psychological focal defects
Biological explanations of crime
Phrenology (1796)
- Franz Jozeph Gall (physician)
- The study of the formation of the skulls as indicative of mental capacities and character traits
- The mind is a collection of independent entities housed within the brain
Biological theories
- Focus on the individual
- Deterministic approach
- The born criminal (Lombroso
o Atavism
o XYY chromosomes
o Defected genetics
- Role of twin studies & adoption studies
- Biosocial theories survival of. The fittest
Cesare Lombroso
- Professor of forensic medicine, psychiatry, criminological anthropology
- Positivist method: observation, experiment and controlled samples as method
- Atavism
o A tendency to revert to something ancient or ancestral
o Biology: recurrence of traits of an ancestor in a subsequent generation
- Possessing 5/18 atavistic stigmata you are categorized as less evolutionary
- Hereditary throwbacks to less developed evolutionary form
The Italian school
- Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garafalo
- Some (less evolved or degenerate) people are more prone to crime than others
- This approach is at odds with the classical school
- Free will becomes determination
- Equality gives way to natural differences
- Social knowledge and human laws give way to scientific (discovered) laws
Continued focus on appearance – somatyping
- William Sheldon (psychologist)
o Endomorph: guided by mouth and stomach: delinquency and fraud
, o Mesomorph: aggressive, assertive, violent: robbery and manslaughter
o Ectomorph: vulnerable, thoughtful, shy: thieves
Contemporary biological perspectives
- Twin studies
o Mutual influence of twins was recognized as being important, not just genetics
- Adoption studies
o Selective placements of adoption agencies and pre/postnatal habits of the mother
have an influence
- DNA studies
o Genetics defects, deletions, duplications
o XYY chromosome is a rare chromosomal disorder that affects males
o Very tall, learning difficulties, impulsive, aggressive
o Overrepresented in prison populations
- Defective genes
- Biochemical, endocrinal and hormonal imbalances
- Genetics
- Low IQ or learning disabilities, ADHD
Limitations of early biological perspectives
- Methodological weaknesses
- Conceptually limited – criminal is a legal definition, not biological
- What is seen as criminal changes over time
- Simplistic (universal theory)
- Tends to reinforce sexist, racist and classist beliefs of crime
Psychological explanations of crime
Crazy insane or insane crazy
- Prevailing idea that crimes so heinous cannot be committed by a ‘normal’ person
- Focus on individual mental qualities and their provocation by externalities
- Stimuli response (based on an existing trait)
- Healthy and unhealthy responses
Psychological theories
- Psychoanalysis theories (Freud)
o Ego, id, superego
- Trait-based theories
o personality disorders
- Behavioral learning theory
o Classic and operational conditioning (Pavlov & Skinner)
- Social learning theories (Tarde)
o Not a response – but imitation
- Cognitive theories (Piaget)
o Interpretation, evaluation, conscious choice
Psychoanalytic approach
- Sigmund Freud
- Unconscious drives shape and determine behavior
- Role of the unconscious mind
o Id – instinct, pleasure
o Ego – rational, realistic
, o Superego – self criticism, morality
- Freud hardly wrote about crime but his ideas were used to explain (criminal) behavior
Psychoanalytical explanations
- Attachment theory – John Bowlby
o Forming a secure bond with the biological mother
o Reactive attachment disorder
- Frustration aggression – William Healy
o Inability to find a release for frustration in a socially accepted manner
o Maladaptation as an explanation of crime
- Criminality is the product of personality traits and is learned
Behavior is learned
- Gordon Allport – trait theory of personality
o Cardinal traits: traits that dominate an individual’s entire personality. Cardinal traits
are thought to be quite rare
o Central traits: common traits that make up personalities, kindness, honesty and
friendliness etc.
o Secondary traits: traits present under certain conditions and circumstances. E.g.
getting nervous before delivering a speech
- Ivan Pavlov
o Classical conditioning
o Influenced the development of behaviorism – focus on research that studies
responses to (external) stimuli
o Social sciences criminality is learned
- Burrhus Frederic Skinner
o A means of learning based on punishment and reward
o Positive reinforcement – something is added to increase a certain behavior
o Negative reinforcement – something is removed to increase certain behavior
o Punishment – something is removed or added to decrease behavior
o Punishment is not desired as It increases frustration, suppresses anger and other
negative effects
Trait-based personality ‘’criminal personality’’
- Abnormal behavior = abnormal personality traits
- Triggered by environmental factors (drugs, alcohol, injury, illness) not from the unconscious
- Hans Eysenck: psychoticism score
o High scorers more prone to psychotic break
o Thrill seekers need a release beyond normal stimuli
- Hervey Cleckely: mask of insanity
o Psychopathy, sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder
Limitations
- Not only criminals but prevalent among people who never commit a crime
- Tautological – explanation is used as the definition
- Broad definition – applicable to anyone who commits a crime
Social learning and modelling
- 1960s to today
- Cognitive psychology
- Approach that humans are not rational beings, but that we examine and analyze our
environment – watch others and decide how to behave
Voordelen van het kopen van samenvattingen bij Stuvia op een rij:
Verzekerd van kwaliteit door reviews
Stuvia-klanten hebben meer dan 700.000 samenvattingen beoordeeld. Zo weet je zeker dat je de beste documenten koopt!
Snel en makkelijk kopen
Je betaalt supersnel en eenmalig met iDeal, creditcard of Stuvia-tegoed voor de samenvatting. Zonder lidmaatschap.
Focus op de essentie
Samenvattingen worden geschreven voor en door anderen. Daarom zijn de samenvattingen altijd betrouwbaar en actueel. Zo kom je snel tot de kern!
Veelgestelde vragen
Wat krijg ik als ik dit document koop?
Je krijgt een PDF, die direct beschikbaar is na je aankoop. Het gekochte document is altijd, overal en oneindig toegankelijk via je profiel.
Tevredenheidsgarantie: hoe werkt dat?
Onze tevredenheidsgarantie zorgt ervoor dat je altijd een studiedocument vindt dat goed bij je past. Je vult een formulier in en onze klantenservice regelt de rest.
Van wie koop ik deze samenvatting?
Stuvia is een marktplaats, je koop dit document dus niet van ons, maar van verkoper norahmelssen. Stuvia faciliteert de betaling aan de verkoper.
Zit ik meteen vast aan een abonnement?
Nee, je koopt alleen deze samenvatting voor €7,16. Je zit daarna nergens aan vast.
Is Stuvia te vertrouwen?
4,6 sterren op Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
Afgelopen 30 dagen zijn er 75323 samenvattingen verkocht
Opgericht in 2010, al 14 jaar dé plek om samenvattingen te kopen