AS to A2
June 10th – 26th
Aims of these sessions
• To develop students understanding of psychological research
on The Turning to crime unit for forensic
psychology.(Upbringing and Cognition)
• To outline the strengths and weaknesses of the different
approaches and perspectives that explain crime using A2
issues and debates
• To encourage and promote good practice in students which
are essential for success at A2 psychology, such as
independent study and keeping a collection of all relevant
newspaper articles linked to real-life application for Forensic
psychology.
Outcomes …. Hopefully!
• Outline and explain the main details
(Aim/Sample/method/Procedure/Results/Conclusions/Reallife applications) of all research into the Upbringing and
Cognitive sections of Turning to crime.
• Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of The upbringing and
Cognitive explanations of crime, using the argument/counterargument structure, with considered use of A2 evaluative
issues and debates in written form
• Students will be able to produce documentation in a folder (or
e-document) that shows evidence of researching and
understanding newspaper articles which relate to the material
covered in the Turning to crime unit.
• Summer task = researching, and answering all questions in the
learning pack on The Biological approach
The A2 Exam!
• Start as we mean to go on!
• Focus on the exam throughout – no January exam so both
papers will be taken in the summer 2014
• There are 2 papers:
• G544 Approaches and Research Methods in Psychology
• G543 Options in Applied Psychology
G544 Approaches and Research
Methods in Psychology
• The approaches part of the paper requires you to know the:
• assumptions,
• theories ,
• strengths and
• weaknesses
of the 5 approaches you looked at in AS psychology
• What were they???
• In addition, the paper will also cover:
• Behavioural approach ~ Bandura
• Psychodynamic approach ~ Freud
G544 Approaches and Research
Methods in Psychology
• The research methods part focuses on
• Methodology
• Evaluation
• Thinking! – future research / alternatives / improvements
• This section will also cover debates / issues within psychology
• What might this include?
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Nature nurture
Determinism vs free will
Reductionism
Psychology as science
Usefulness of research
G543 Options in Applied
Psychology
• The options paper is all about applying psychology in real-life
settings
• Your task will be to research 4 questions and write a 200-300 word
discussion of each
• This part of the paper will provide you with options from 4 areas of
psychology
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Forensic
Health
Sport
Education
• The Psychology team are still developing the material for September
But for now….
• We know that you will definitely be covering Forensic
• Learning packs
• These are your packs for the next few weeks and also have
your summer independent learning tasks in …. Guard them
with your life!
• Structure….
• Studies …
Any questions?
Lets get thinking
• What is crime?
• Why do people commit crime?
In groups develop some ideas to answer these 2
questions
TURNING TO CRIME
UPBRINGING
Turning to
crime
Upbringing
Disrupted
families
Learning
from others
Poverty
Cognition
Biological
Upbringing ~ Real life….
• Jamie Bulger
Independent learning
• Complete the ‘what makes us turn to crime?’ task in the
learning pack
• Read the worksheet on the real-life case of the Jamie Bulger
murder
Disrupted families
The Cambridge Study in delinquent development:
Farrington (1997)
• Aims: 1. Document start, duration & end
of offending from childhood to adulthood
in families. 2. Investigate influence of life
events (risk, protective factors &
intergenerational transmission) on
offending and anti-social behaviour.
• Longitudinal study (+30yrs)- data
gathered via interviews, questionnaires,
tests & searches of criminal records
• 414 boys aged 8-9 born in 1953/4 from 6
state schools in East London-mostly white
W/C
• 397 families involved (including 14
siblings & 5 twins)
• At age 48, 394 were still alive, out of
these, 365 were interviewed (93%)
The Cambridge Study in delinquent
development:
Farrington (1997)
• Results:
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161 had convictions at age 48.
Offences & offenders peaked at age 17 then 18.
If convicted at age 10-13, (av 9 crimes) nearly all reconvicted.
If convicted at age14-16 (av crimes 6).
These 2 groups committed 77% of all crimes in the study.
93% Self- reported crime (not in official stats).
The Cambridge Study in delinquent
development:
Farrington (1997)
• 7% ‘chronic offenders’ (50% of all offences).
• Of these, conviction careers lasted for 14-35yrs- these
‘persisters’ (crimes before & after age 21) more likely to have
a convicted parent, high daring, delinquent siblings, a young
mother with poor child rearing practices, low popularity,
disrupted family (e.g. separation, conflict), low family income,
large families with multi-problems. Same pattern for
‘desisters’ (crimes only up to age 20)
• Successful lives (turning away from crime)-78% at age 32,
increased to 88% at age 48. Even ‘persisters’ improved to 65%
between age 32-48.
The Cambridge Study in delinquent
development:
Farrington (1997)
Conclusion:
• The Cambridge Study shows the extent to which different
types of offenders (persisters, desisters and late onset
offenders) might have been predicted in childhood, at age 8–
10.
• The results show that early onset is an important predictor of
career length.
• Most important risk factors are; criminality in the family/
poverty/ poor child-rearing/ poor school performance/
impulsiveness
•
.
The Cambridge Study in delinquent
development:
Farrington (1997)
Implications
• Risk assessment devices could be developed based on these
results. It is especially important to predict the length (or
residual length) of criminal careers to ensure that valuable
prison space is not wasted by imprisoning people who are
about to stop offending.
• Would be beneficial to introduce early intervention
programme targeted at under 10’s to break the cycle.
ISSUES TO CONSIDER IN ORDER TO
EVALUATE THIS STUDY
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Nature – nurture
Determinism v Free Will
Can it be generalised?
Problems of correlational data
Reductionism v multiple causation
Methodology- longitudinal study
Qualitative and Quantitative data
Can not explain crimes of passion and impulsive offences
TURNING TO CRIME
LEARNING FROM OTHERS
Turning to
crime
Upbringing
Disrupted
families
Learning
from others
Poverty
Cognition
Biological
Task…
• In your groups, develop some reasoning as to why the rioters
behaved the way they did
• Feedback
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hPlf9f0iYQ
Learning from others ~ Real
life
• Another theory as to why people turn to crime is
• Learning from others
• A real life situation where this could be applied is the London
Riots 2011
London Riots 2011
• August 2011 saw thousands of people rioting in London which
then spread to numerous towns and cities across England
• Chaos generated looting, arson and mass police presence
• Started following the death Mark Duggan ~ shot dead by
police
• Police were informed that if public concern for his death was
not addressed riots could occur
• Protests started and protestors became angry after it was
alleged that during this a 16 year old girl was attacked by
police after provoking them
• Domino effect from then on
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About 3,100 arrests made
Approx 1,000 of these were charged
Total 3,443 crimes across London linked to the riots
999 calls rose 300% on one night ~ from 5,400 to 20,800
5 deaths
16 injured
£200 million property damage
Debate
• Generated significant debate among politicians, social and
academic figures…
• …in relation to the causes and context in which all this
occurred
What actually happened?
• BBC live
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm8r8I7ApDQ
Live coverage shortly before the hooligans stole the BBC camera
and smashed up their camera truck. They withdrew from
filming until the next day due to the dangers as police had
absolutely no control and just stood back.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNh-fTv1Gm8
• Man helped and then robbed ~ what reasoning?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTkVKifAfmc
• Pure criminality / ‘copycat’
Some explanations
• Some attributions for the rioters behaviour have included…
• Structural factors:
• Racism
• Classism
• Economic decline
• Cultural factors:
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Pure criminality
Hooliganism
Breakdown of social morality
Gang culture
Social learning theory
• What is it?
• Learning through observation and imitation ~ Bandura
• Reinforcement – positive and negative
• Vicarious reinforcement
• Focus on internalising or adopting another person’s behaviour
Task…
• Who makes an effective role model and why?
Write one quality as to what makes an effective role model
Learning from others
Theory of differential association
Sutherland (1939)
• The theory is based on the behaviourist ideas about learning
principles explaining criminality:
• The theory was presented in the form of 9 principles:
1. Criminal behaviour is learned- Not result of biology- so
crime can only be invented by influence of others
2. Criminal behaviour learned from others in a process of
communication- usually verbal form or gestures from
others, not independent of others.
3. Learning criminal behaviour occurs within intimate personal
groups- intimate personal groups have largest influence on
learning criminal behaviour, not impersonal agencies such as
media
Theory of differential association
Sutherland (1939)
4. Learning criminal behaviour includes techniques of
committing crime, rationalisations and attitudes- learning
the ‘trade’ from someone and attitudes taken and excuses
made for behaving in a criminal fashion.
5. Motives & drives are learned from defining legal codes as
favourable or unfavourable- Some laws seen as pointless or
discriminatory so people feel they can flaunt them e.g.
underage drinking.
6. Delinquency occurs by learning definitions in favour of
violation of law rather than lack of violation- Individuals
become criminal due to repeated contacts with criminal
activity and lack of contact with non-criminal activity
Theory of differential association
Sutherland (1939)
7. Differential associations (contacts with criminals over noncriminals) vary in frequency, duration, priority & intensityprecise description of criminal behr is possible in
quantitative form by analysing the no. of contacts with
criminals (appropriate formula for this not yet developed!).
8. Learning criminal behaviour by association with criminals is
the same as any other learning-nothing ‘special’ or
‘abnormal’ about criminal behr- not biological or
pathological reasons for criminal behr.
9. Criminal behr is an expression of needs & values, but it is
not explained by those general needs and values-stealing to
obtain money is no different to needs of an honest worker,
so this NEED in itself can not explain theft.
ISSUES TO CONSIDER IN ORDER TO
EVALUATE THIS STUDY
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•
•
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Nature – nurture
Determinism v Free Will
Reductionism v multiple causation
Crime is ‘socially constructed’?
Theory considers behaviour from social-psychological
perspective…this means?
Additional Tasks….
BBC Documentary about those closest to the riots
Read over Sutherlands Theory in your packs
• Research a real life crime which can be explained by
Sutherlands theory
• Develop a newspaper article describing the crime and
explaining it by use of the theory
Summer work...
• Complete the sub section of Upbringing
• Read through the Cognition and Biological explanations of why
people turn to crime
• Complete the handout given to you by Simon ~ copy can be
found on my blog