摘要:

Purpose. To provide an introduction to evolutionary psychology by describing some of its applications in the literature on the psychology of criminal and antisocial behaviour.Argument. Selectionist thinking is applied to five areas: the relationship of age and sex to crime, the inverse correlation between degree of kinship and homicide, paedophilia, persistent antisociality, and sexual coercion. In each of these areas, ultimate causes of behaviour are distinguished from proximal causes. Ultimate causes are produced by selective forces in ancestral environments and are responsible for species typical characteristics. Proximal causes, in contrast, are contemporaneous developmental, genetic, and environmental determinants of behaviour.Conclusions. The interplay between ultimate and proximal causation provides new ways of understanding old problems and is a fruitful source of research hypotheses. Evolutionary psychology can provide a powerful integrative perspective on criminal and antisocial behaviour.

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532502168324

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2002

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Objectives. The primary objective is to report upon the assessments and procedures carried out in relation to an adult with learning difficulties whose competence as a witness in a criminal trial had been challenged.Design. The participant had been referred to the first author by the court for assessment in the course of a criminal trial.Method. The assessment instruments used were the WAIS‐R, GSS2, Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales (4th ed., Survey Version) and a set of structured questions devised for this particular participant. The functions being measured were intelligence, social function, suggestibility and the ability to accurately and truthfully report factual information.Case outcome. The participant's scores on the intelligence test brought her within the category of someone with learning difficulties, but she was found to have a high level of social functioning. She was highly suggestible, but she showed she could distinguish between false and truthful statements, despite negative feedback. The conclusion was that she would meet the requirements of a competent witness.Discussion. As a consequence of the procedures used in this case, it was decided that the approach of using a combination of standard psychometric testing and a series of structured questions was the most appropriate method of assessing witness competenc

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532502168351

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2002

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. Conventional approaches to offender profiling assume a homology of the characteristics of offenders with their crime scene actions: the more similar two offenders are with respect to background characteristics, the higher the resemblance in their crime scene behaviour. This implicit working hypothesis is tested empirically.Methods. The study is based on a sample of 100 British male stranger rapists. These individuals were indexed with respect to the similarity in their crime scene actions as derived from witness statements. They were then compared with respect to their socio‐demographic features and criminal histories as derived from police records. In a correlational analysis, we tested whether increased similarity in one domain (offence behaviour) coincided with higher resemblance in the other domains (socio‐demographic features and previous convictions).Results. There is no positive linear relationship for any of the comparisons, i.e. rapists who offend in a similar fashion are not more similar with respect to age, socio‐demographic features (such as employment situation and ethnicity) or their criminal records.Conclusions. These findings indicate no evidence for the assumption of a homology between crime scene actions and background characteristics for the rapists in the sample. We argue that this result suggests that thehomology assumptionis too simplistic to provide a basis for offender profiling. Implications for future research include the search for a suitable framework for offender profiling that is grounded in personality psychology. Further, methodological considerations are discussed, such as the potential application of probabilistic s

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532502168360

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2002

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. Perpetrators may be more motivated than other witnesses to withhold reporting crime‐related details that have a probative value for the police investigation. One strategy among suspects/perpetrators to absolve themselves from culpability is simply to feign memory impairment. The present study aimed to investigate how different kinds of simulation of memory impairment affect later genuine memory performance.Methods. Individuals were tested as perpetrators after having read a story about ‘themselves’ committing a violent crime. There were four groups and two test occasions. At the first test occasion, one group was tested on what they actually recalled, a second group was not tested at all, while the two remaining groups were asked to simulate memory impairment by making either omission errors (SIM OM) or commission errors (SIM COM). At the second test occasion, all groups responded genuinely.Results. Different kinds of simulation have different impact on later recall. Simulation by omission caused more detrimental effects than simulation by commission on free recall, while the reverse was true for responses to open‐ended questions. However, simulators showed no impairments on the multiple‐choice questions.Conclusions. Simulators' worse memory performance is discussed in terms of non‐rehearsal effects and retrieval‐induced forgetting. Regarding the open‐ended questions, misinformation effects might

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532502168379

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2002

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. The aim of the present study was to explore the nature and effectiveness of neutral and minimal facilitative prompts in forensic interviews with children, and the extent to which their effectiveness varies depending on their location relative to other prompts or on the stage of the interview.Method. Fifty forensic interviews with alleged victims of child sexual abuse, which closely followed the NICHD investigative protocol, were analysed. Each of the interviewer's utterances was classified into one of five categories (invitation, facilitator, directive, option‐posing or suggestive) and the number of words and details provided in each of the child's responses were tabulated.Results. Facilitators proved to play an important role in forensic interviews, with children providing an average of five new substantive details following each facilitator. However, the effectiveness of facilitators varied depending upon their context. Facilitators in the first part of the substantive phase and facilitators following responses to open‐ended invitations were most effective. Facilitators seem to function much like the previous eliciting utterance with respect to both the amount of information they elicit and the contents of reply.Conclusions. The findings suggest that facilitators are not necessarily open‐ended in nature and are likely to function as option‐posing or suggestive questions when they follow responses to such qu

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532502168388

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2002

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. The objective of this study was to identify and validate general criminal thinking scales for the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) formed on the basis of item content.Methods. The 64 items that comprise the eight PICTS thinking style scales were rationally sorted into two general content scales: a scale composed of items believed to reflect current criminal attitudes and beliefs, and a scale that references past criminal attitudes and beliefs. Eliminating items that exhibited highly skewed distributions, that failed to discriminate between custody levels, that loaded weakly on the first factor of a principal components analysis, and that displayed minimal differentiation in correlations with the two content scales resulted in a 13‐item Current scale and a 12‐item Historical scale.Results. Data analyses of PICTS results attained by several different samples of offenders revealed divergent patterns of strength for the two content scales, with the Historical scale demonstrating greater stability and correlating better with past criminality and the Current scale being more effective in predicting future disciplinary and release outcome.Conclusions. The outcome of this study suggests that the Current scale furnishes a meaningful estimate of an offender's current criminal thinking which may be useful in predicting future criminality, while the Historical scale does a better job of assessing a person's criminal past which may or may not coincide with current criminal attitudes and beli

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532502168397

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2002

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. The purpose of the study was to address how assertiveness relates to bullying behaviour among adult prisoners.Methods. The sample was selected from six separate prison establishments (three male, three female) and consisted of 502 adult prisoners (285 men, 217 women). Prisoners were placed into one of four bully‐categories (‘pure bullies’, ‘bully/victims’, ‘pure victims’ or ‘not involved’) on the basis of a self‐report behavioural checklist (DIPC: Direct and Indirect Prisoner Behaviour Checklist). They also completed the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS).Results. Assertiveness among prisoners was made up of three components: social assertiveness, argumentative and combativeness, and a willingness to converse with others. Men reported significantly higher overall assertiveness and social assertiveness scores than women. Pure victims reported lower total assertiveness scores than the other categories and there was a trend for pure bullies to report higher total assertiveness scores than the other bully‐categories. Bully/victims scored significantly higher on the argumentative and combative scale in comparison to the overall mean and there was a trend in the same direction for pure bullies. There was a trend for pure victims to score lower on this scale and those not involved in bullying reported significantly lower scores on this scale. Those not involved also scored significantly higher on social assertiveness and there was a trend for both bully/victims and pure victims to score lower on this component.Conclusions. The present research showed how certain components of assertiveness relate to bullying behaviour among prisoners. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research, and possible implications for inte

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532502168405

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2002

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. There has been a great deal of debate concerning the role and sentencing of drug traffickers. Attention has been paid to the gendered organization of the drug trafficking trade whereby women tend to occupy the high‐risk, low‐status role of courier. The main aim of our study was to explore the role of women in drug trafficking crime. In addition, a particular interest focused on whether women were sentenced inequitably in comparison to men.Methods. A secondary analysis was carried out of the demographic and sentencing characteristics of 1715 drug traffickers caught smuggling drugs through Heathrow Airport between July 1991 and September 1997.Results. Women were adopting a more dangerous role by being significantly more likely to take the higher‐risk, lower‐status role of courier. Female couriers were physically carrying more drugs in terms of weight and value than male couriers. In addition, women were statistically more likely to carry Class A drugs rather than Class B. The results did not support claims of inequity in sentencing between men and women, allowing for the nature of the drug and its weight/estimated street value.Conclusions. The results consolidate previous research on the disproportionate number and specific role of women involved in drug trafficking. This role appears to be counter‐intuitive given the theories concerning gender stereotyping and cr

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532502168414

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2002

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Purpose. This study examined the offence of child abduction in England and Wales. Specifically, the relationship of perpetrator to victim and motivation of the perpetrator were considered. It was hypothesized that discrete types of child abduction would be identifiable.Methods. The sample consisted of all offenders convicted of child abduction between 1993 and 1995 identified by the Offenders Index. For each conviction further data were gathered from police records at New Scotland Yard. The resulting sample comprised 149 offenders. These offenders were categorized in terms of relationship to victim and motivation.Results. Four different motivational types of child abduction were identified: sexual, custodial, maternal desire, and ‘other’. The majority of child abductions were sexually motivated, and most child abductions involved female victims.Conclusions. Offence categories are useful for summarizing criminal data but mask factors such as relationship of the perpetrator to the victim, and motivat

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532502168423

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2002

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Book reviewed in this article:Research decisions, quantitative and qualitative perspectives By Ted PalysSerious and violent juvenile offenders By R. Loeber&D. P. FarringtonInterviewing and deception By D. Canter and L. Alison (Eds)Issues in forensic psychology 2: Positive directions for women in secure environments By Rebecca Horn&Sam Warner (issue editors)Behaviour, crime and legal processes: A guide for forensic practitioners By J. McGuire, T. Mason and A. O'Kane (Eds)The implicit relation of psychology and law—Women and syndrome evidence By Fiona E. Raitt and M. Suzanne ZeedykTaking sides: Clashing views on controversial issues in crime and criminology By Richard C. Monk (Ed)Policing, ethics and human rights By Peter Neyroud and Alan Beckl

ISSN:1355-3259    

DOI:10.1348/135532502168333

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2002

数据来源: WILEY