Criminology

Criminology is the study of why people commit the crimes they do. Looking more into depth on an individual and the specific situation they were in. Understanding more about why a person commits a crime can lead to a rehabilitation to stop them from doing crimes again.  Why do people commit crimes? from a misdemeanor to violent felonies some individuals learn their lesson the first time they commit a crime, after spending time in jail. Criminology is analyzing on illegal human behavior, and why people do this behavior. It is a mix of social science of psychology and criminal justice. Articles found on criminology all lead up to nurture being the reason people commit crimes. The articles explain how research has shown that children with a bad childhood are more likely to have bad behaviors to lead to crimes in the future. research has shown that people can mostly rule out inheriting anything from parents that would cause someone to become a criminal. They found that it is more likely the environment a child grows up in that will affect the type of personality and behavior they will have in the future. Criminologist have found that certain offenders were just born into a bad environment. Criminology is the study of why people commit the crimes they do, criminologist have found that a likely reason that criminals commit crimes is because of the way they were raised and what type of social environmental setting they grew up in. Nurture on a person’s life can change what type of person they will become in the future.

Why do people commit crimes?

Criminals commit crimes for many different reasons and there is not any solid research on why one person may commit a crime. The theories on why people commit a crime have changed or emerged into something different over the years. Some key theories are:
1. Rational Choice Theory- People usually act in their self interest and make decisions to commit a crime after weighing the potential risks, like getting caught and punished.
2. Social Disorganization Theory- Someone's physical and social environments are primarily responsible for their behavioral choices. A neighborhood that has fraying social structures is more likely to have a high crime rate.
3. Strain Theory- A lot of people have similar aspirations, but not everyone has the same opportunities or abilities. When people fail to achieve society's expectations, they may try to achieve success through crime.
4. Social Learning Theory- People may develop motivation to commit crime and the skills to commit crime through the people they associate with.

brain activity predicts re-arrest

Why is it that people commit crimes, then they get out of jail and commit another crime and get themselves back into jail? Could science and biology have anything to do with the decisions criminals make? The science magazine states that there could be a biological reason to why people make poor decisions. The scientist magazine research and found that prisoners have a lower activity in a particular region of the brain while preforming computer-based decision making skills are more likely to get arrested again on release from prison. The prisoners that had a higher activity level in that region of the brain were less likely to get re-arrested than the prisoners with the low activity. (publish date, March, 25) the region of the brain that the neuroscientist were looking at was the cingulate cortex of the brain. This area of the brain has an impact on decision making, and motor control. The computer-base would test the prisoners with challenges that require quick decision making skills and they would record the inhibit impulsive reaction as they made quick decisions. The researchers then released the prisoners and then monitored them for the next four years and saw that the prisoners that tested a lower ACC activity were roughly twice as likely to get re-arrested than the prisoners with a higher ACC activity level. The result of this study has shown that it is possible that ACC activity level could be connected to cognitive levels. A higher ACC and cognitive level would reduce the prisoner from being  recidivism. The result of this study has shown that activity level in the cortex can predict if someone will get themselves re-arrested.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/02/criminal-mind.aspx

When people speak of criminals they think are they are just evil or psycho. But really a large percent of criminals have a biological factor that can back up why they did what they did. The brain is very complex but what researchers from many university's have found that the Amygdala which is in control of emotion and aggression. What they found was that a team of 26 year old men who had a lower amygdala volume has higher percent's of crime records, aggression, and violence versus those who have a higher volume. What they are looking at is just because it is the biological factor does that mean that they cant change it? Researchers went to a prison and did tests on inmates with various things such as just giving more vitamins and providing a more healthy life style to one group and placebo effect to the other and watches to see if their violence behavior changed at all. Those who were given a more healthy life style at the time, reduced their record for violence and penalties, while the other group remained steady with theirs. Another group was also put through a yoga class to find their inner peace and deal with their anger and stress and their violence reduced as well. Researchers believe that by giving someone with high anger and violence issues a healthier life style that they weren't given to begin with can actually help reduce their problems so they don't continue to behave in the way they have. Although other people may have more serious conditions such as tumors, malformations, and even drug issues. There are possible ways to prevent a criminal from lashing out more.
http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/action/showFullTextImages?pii=S0006-3223%2813%2900312-0

What motivates smart talented people to commit fraud?

There are some smart and talented people who get caught for fraud all the time and end up in jail or prison for it. Now what motivates these people to do this? Some people have tunnel vision and having a single-minded focus can blind people. The power of names, like the use of nicknames and euphemisms for questionable practices can free them for their moral connotations, making them see it more acceptable. Social bond theory, employees can begin to feel more like numbers or cogs in machines; when these people start to feel detached they are more likely to commit fraud, steal, or hurt the company. The Galatea effect, their self image can determine their behavior; people who have a strong self image are less likely to do unethical things. Acceptance of small theft, when they have temptations to take small things like sugar packets or toilet paper and those small thefts are ignored they are more likely to commit bigger ones then. Conspicuous consumption, extreme wealth or environments that have extreme wealth can lead to some unethical behavior in people; the presence of more money makes people more selfish. The Pygmalion effect, the way some people are seen and treated can influence the way that they act. Winner take-all competition, when there is a defined winner and loser people are going to be more likely to cheat.

Mental Motivations

Many things can trigger a person to murder.  A person can be very unstable and kill because of anger.  They can be mentally ill and believe that killing the other person is the answer to the problem.  Another reason to kill could be because of drugs.  Either they want drugs, a drug dealer ripped them off, or their minds have become warped on the drugs which causes their logic and trains of thought to be all over the board. Criminals could also be raised in a very hostile environment. They could have grown up in neighborhoods where murders and crime were part of everyday lives.  They have grown up to mirror the actions they watched while growing up.  They think the only way to manage their anger is by getting violent, which can sometimes result in murder.  Murderers can also be triggered by conditions in their environment such as paranoia other fears.  One time murderers don't kill for fun.  They end up killing because they feel threatened.  A different, however intriguing theory is that counselors have a way of warping the thinking process of murderers.  They say that counselors and therapists can change somebody's thinking about a certain topic. This can be used in either a good or bad way.  Depending on the stability of the counselor, they can actually use their patients to commit crimes and do tasks for them.  I found this very interesting because of how outlandish it seemed.  It doesn't seem like a counselor would have the drive or means to try to do something like this, however it is completely plausible.  It almost seemed like something out of a movie.

Criminals & thiers brains

New research is showing that the minds of criminals are actually different than those who are not.  There are differences in the brain itself.  A few different parts of the brain actually have up to 19% less volume than others with a “normal” brain.  They also might have deformations in their amygdala and/or a thinning cortex.  Since the amygdala is the place in the brain where emotion is processed once it gets damaged it affects the types of emotion you feel if any.  Psychopaths lack emotion which would be explained by the deformed amygdala.  In addition to having different brains they also show different behavioral patterns, these are the types of things that criminal psychologists would look at is how they and why they do what they do.  Looking into the different parts of the brain and their behavior would help them do that.  The rest of the article does a really good job of looking into the differences of different disorders and how they look in the brain.  So if you’re interested here’s the link (: http://www.livescience.com/13083-criminals-brain-neuroscience-ethics.html

The Criminal Brain

Most criminal brains work differently than the average human brain. Some criminals turn to crime after a rough childhood, but criminals who are psychopaths and have personality disorders their minds are wired for it. Here are 10 interesting facts about a criminal's brain.
1. Parts of a criminal's brain are deformed- Some parts in their brains are not all the same size like they should be. Two parts of the frontal lobe are smaller in people who have antisocial personality disorder, they have the tendency to act violent and become repeated offenders. One part was 18% smaller and the other was 9% smaller in the antisocial compared to the normal. Also it is found that the amygdala has a volume of about 18% smaller and that's where human emotion is found.
2. There could be a tumor- It is not common for a criminal to have a brain tumor, but it has been found that some do have brain tumors and that would be in control of their unthinkable acts.
3. Chemical levels in the brain could be off- Some criminal brains have different levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin or dopamine than a normal brain. The serotonin in the brain when its at a proper level keeps people from acting aggressively when they get frustrated, so when this chemical is lower people may act impulsively and violently. Dopamine levels in the brain will affect whether a person will feel rewarded, so if this chemical increases while the person is acting aggressively he/she will more likely feel good about doing it and do it again.
4. The brain won't respond to facial expressions- Psychopaths may not have brains that register fearful expressions on other's faces. Psychopaths have a harder time knowing when an expression is sad. They have almost no reaction to the expression of fear, while normal people's brains get active when they see a scared expression.
5. They are fearless- Psychopath's brains don't react with fear as frequently as normal people's do. They lack the fear conditioning that causes normal people to be afraid when they know fear is coming. The lack of anxiety over the future and the consequences can result in a very dangerous criminal.
6. Warning signs as early as the age of three- Researchers tested a group of three-year-olds to certain sounds and they expected them to have a measurable reaction when they knew an unpleasant sound was coming up. Only 8% of children didn't have any reaction to the bed or frightening sounds. Then about 20 years later they found that about 8% had criminal records for crimes ranging in severity from violent or serious driving infractions.
7. The rational side and irrational side communicate too much- The corpus callosum connects the rational left side of the brain to the irrational right side of the brain. This bundle of fibers in psychopaths is longer and thinner than it is in the average person. It also has more activity which means more communication between the two hemispheres. This can often lead to more impulsive behavior.
8. They're genetically predisposed to crime- There is research that to support the idea that many criminal brains are genetically prone to aggressive or illegal behavior. Some criminals happen because of their environment, but a large number of murders were raised in conflict-free households. They were born with a trait that gave them a higher likelihood of becoming violent criminals. Their brains are more inclined to them than the average humans.
9. Teens' brains aren't fully formed yet- Reasoning and judgment are known to mature throughout the teen years into a person's 20s. Teenagers are more impulsive, more susceptible to peer pressure, less likely to look at the long-term consequences of their actions, and less able to think of ways out of bad situations. Aggression can also peak in the teenage years, so a violent teen may not be a violent adult.
10. Smoking while pregnant can lead to children with criminal tendencies- When smoking while pregnant the mother may be harming her baby's brain in a way that is more likely to make them a criminal. Research has shown that the average adult is 31% more likely to have been arrested at some point if their mother smoked while pregnant. Those who have heavily smoker mothers were more likely to be repeat offenders. Nicotine can cause abnormalities in the development of attention and impulse control in the brain.

could Nature vs Nurture have to do with criminal minds?

Think about some of the world’s most known criminals. What could have driven these criminals to perform such evil acts? Could it have anything to do with nature vs. nurture? Could criminals minds develop over time, or is it the way someone is born. My guess would be that a criminal is developed over time and the way someone is raised, and treated will put an effect onto the way someone will become, personality wise. Studies have shown that psychopath’s brains are different than the normal population’s brains. A study has shown that at times people can predict a criminal by the age of 6 years old. On the when site future criminals can be identified they explain a child with a bad temper growing up and not treated properly have found that those are the kids most likely to commit crimes in the future. Even know a child isn't treated right and has had a temper, it doesn't mean they will automatically commit crimes in the future. They just found that those kids are far more likely to than any kids who were raised with good morals. A well-known serial kill named Aileen Wuornos. She was an abused child who later in life made bad decisions then it lead her to become a serial killer. She was raised being abused. Because of all of the people she had killed she was executed in a Florida prison. She could have became the person she was because she was raised with violence. Criminals could become the way they are because of the way they are raised. This shows that Nurture in a person’s childhood could affect the type of person they will become one day.

What makes someone want to murder?

There are so many reasons why someone murders another person. It could have to do with drugs, an accident, mental illness, and so many others. One though is health issues such as tumors or malformation of something in the pain. Some people such as Whitman in the Time article went on a mass kill. Killing 17 people and then his family. What would make someone do such a horrid crime? Whitman had wrote a suicide note after his killings and the killing of himself, saying for sometime now he hasn't been able to stop these thoughts, he doesn't feel like himself and he wants to donate his money to do research on mental illnesses. Whitman clearly stated that he didn't feel right and apologized for what he has done in his letter. If he didn't think what he was doing was the slightest bit wrong I don't think he would have apologized. When  they did Whitman's autopsy they found a tumor and a malformation of a valve pressing against his amygdala. The amygdala is what controls emotion in the brain. They believe that the tumor pressing up against the amygdala could be what contributes to Whitman's actions. How can one control themselves if what they are feeling and expressing is really what they are felling and expressing? Many murders and their actions have been linked to malformations, tumors, traumas, and brain damage from previous injuries. Which leads to was the crime a true act of evil or would it have ever happened if their illness had been treated. Its a question that is still hard to have a complete answer to due to others actually committing the crime knowing why and having done it for a specific reason.

forensic psychologist

We had a forensic psychologist come into our class and we learned some facts about the way a criminal minds work, and why people do the things they do.  We also learned some statistic facts about the real amount of crimes that will happen and if any criminals would recommit this crime after they were released from jail. Yesterday the forensic psychologist talked to us about how a criminals mind works. He told us that some people who commit these crimes may not feel that they did anything wrong. That’s where the forensic psychologist comes in. the forensic psychologists is an expert witness who is called to testify about the defendants behavior. Using interviews, psychological evidence and person’s background, and the psychologist will give their opinion on the mental state of the defendant and the accused. In class the forensic psychologist talked about the amount of people who would commit a crime. Then he talked about once released from jail the amount of them who would do it a second time. He said that out of all the people who go to jail for a crime and then get out of jail would recommit the crime would be around one person out of ten people. He also talked about how there is rules for offender, that they can’t be around playgrounds. He said that very few offenders go to playgrounds to take kids. Most of the offenders take kids that they would know. In class he also talked about how most of the people who commit crimes were under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He explained that the people in jail would tell him they have never done crime sober. That most crime that are committed are by people who were not in the right state of mind. That alcohol affects the decisions people make.    

Criminal Psychologist vs. Forensic Psychologist

Criminal and forensic psychologists both work in the law enforcement and assisting the law with investigating and solving crimes. The difference between the two is that a criminal psychologist focuses primarily on determining the motive and creating a profile on the perpetrator, now forensic psychologists focus on the aftermath of a crime, like evaluating the suspect's mental state or counseling the victims and their families. They each work either different people as well. Criminal psychologists work with police officers and other law enforcement professionals, they mainly work as consultants or they counsel law enforcement officers after a crisis like an on the job shooting. Forensic psychologists work with people like offenders, victims and their family members, and witnesses and attorneys. Some forensic psychologists work in correctional facilities or a case-by-case basis, which is interviewing victims for a single case and having no further contact once they go to trial. Criminal psychologists can sometimes work full time at police departments or other law enforcement agencies, while they work there they provide routine counseling and guidance either during or after a crisis in a hostage negotiation or criminal psychologists can work in a private practice but serve as a consultant to law enforcement agencies, while they do this they help the officers understand the mind and the motive of the suspect. Forensic psychologists will help out rehabilitate offenders through therapy, anger management and other counseling services.  Forensic psychologists can also perform mental evaluations that determine if a suspect is competent to stand on trial and can testify in court, they also interview victims and witnesses but mostly in sensitive crimes with women and children.

Second Post

Criminal psychology is very interesting and has always interested me. Having the guest speaker come in yesterday was very interesting.  I  thought that it was interesting how many sex crimes happen with people you know rather than with a complete stranger.  It made me more aware that  the people that the media make us scared of is really outrageous.  The laws protecting kids at parks and schools only affect a small amount of sex crimes which was very surprising. I also found it very interesting when the speaker was talking about what he does for a job.  He has to get on the stand in court and testify about his findings. He talked about how the attorneys try to tear him down and ruin his credibility but he cant take it to heart and has to focus on his findings.  I feel like this would be a very interesting job to take part in.  The speaker that came in can relate to the topic of criminal psychology because he has to test and see if criminals are well enough to take the stand and stand on trial.  He has to clarify that the criminal is indeed insane. I found it very interesting that not many people try to fake insanity.  Tv shows and movies have twisted peoples thinking about court and criminal psychology.  The speaker yesterday even said "Court is not as fun as in the Tv shows. It is very straightforward and quite boring".  There are so many tests that you have to pass and take in order to determine that you are insane.  It would be extremely hard to fake and get away with faking being insane.

What is Criminal Psychcology

Forensic Psychology I find extremely interesting.  It just intrigues me why criminals would do what they do.  I am aware that TV shows like Criminal Minds dramatize this drastically but I still find the shows that portray this very interesting.  They show the crimes and how they happen and then go about trying to profile the perpetrator, when in reality criminal psychologist don’t normally set up profiles and more often they decide if the criminal was sane at the time of the crime.  They show up in court and give their professional opinions to the judge on whether or not they believe that they knew what they were doing wrong at the time of crime.  Also for the court room they will do research on previous cases like the current one in order to use that as sort of a precedent.  They can also assist the police in investigations by advising what questions they should ask, they work in hospitals to assess individuals with different tests in order to deem their sanity and the likelihood of them reoffending.  Some do however profile criminals if there is a linkage case, which is where they have a crime and they check it in the database in order to see if there are any other similar crimes that could have been done by the same person, and when profiling these cases they use things such as motive and where it was done and how it was done to try and decide if it was a male or female, height and build (if possible), and any other little detail that could help them find out who did it.  There is a lot more too it but that is just a quick overview of what they would do in their day-to-day.

 

Criminal Psychology: Beginners Guide

Written by: Ray Bull, Claire Crooke, Ruth Hatcher, Jessica Woodhams, Charlotte Bilby and Tim Grant

A Beautiful Mind- relating to criminal psychology

The movie A Beautiful Mind, does not directly connect to criminal psychology. But there are some things that could be connected to criminal psychology in a way, like later on in the movie when Alisha, his wife and Nash are arguing after Nash had just left their baby boy in the tub with the water running and he wasn't taking his pills for his schizophrenia and Alisha takes the baby out of the tub while panicking and is calling the doctor Nash is seeing a guy trying to hurt Alisha so Nash shoves her down to the ground.  When he shoves her down to the ground from any other persons perspective it would look like he is physically abusing her. Also, when Nash leaves the baby in the tub with the water running, the baby would've eventually drown if the water was kept running and that could be portrayed as an attempt of murder. Nash just kept telling Alisha that one of the guys was watching over the baby while he was in the tub, but by the way it looks to Alisha it just looks like Nash was trying to commit murder by drowning their baby boy.  Another example of how the movie could've related to criminal psychology would be when Nash is hallucinating that he works for the government. When Nash thinks he works for the government the things this so called government has him doing they want him to keep quiet about it, because the things are not legal to a sense.

reflecting what we learned in class

In the movie "a beautiful mind" it has the character named John Nash who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. His symptoms began when he started graduate school at Princeton University. He believed that he was working with the government. He believed that his job would be to "unlock "codes for the government to detect bombs. Once his wife and him discover that these were Hallucination they started with treatment. In class we learned about abnormal disorders Schizophrenia is a disorder in the brain which causes hallucination and people can't tell the difference on what is real and what isn't. We learned the symptoms to this disorder and how it affects people, and what they can do to prevent the hallucinations. In class we learned about types of therapies to treat disorders like schizophrenia. They used electroshock therapy to treat his disorder. Then they used medication to keep the Hallucinations away. Both electroshock and medication are a type of therapy if they make symptoms go away. in class we learned that people would try to stop taking their medication because they believed they were treated. In the movie John Nash had schizophrenia and he would see hallucinations. the doctors treated his symptoms with types of therapy. In class we learned about types of therapy and symptoms that would occur with schizophrenia.

Reflect how it effected your own psyche (emotion, thinking, attitudes, behavior)

In the movie A Beautiful Mind, Nash is struggling between what's real and what's not. He's married with a child and is a math genius lost in delusions due to his schizophrenia. Through out the movie Nash has outbreaks when stuck in his delusions. While watching the movie I felt a lot of emotions such as confusion, sorrow, and anger at points. When Nash has a delusion that he is being chased by the government and leaves the classroom yelling and running I actually thought it was happening. But when he ended up in the psych ward it really surprised me that it was all in his head. I was confused how all this time he was having these delusions and no one caught on. When his wife Alisha breaks into his office and finds his letters to the "government" that were never picked up, I felt extremely bad for her. All this time her husband had lost his mind and she had no clue.
It really showed me how much perspectives can be different and how people are to quit to judge. We never see the whole picture of everything and tend to draw conclusions that can end up to be completely different from what it actually is. It really opened my eyes. I also think his wife was really strong and stood by his side when no one else would. She fought through it with him because living with someone like that has to be just as hard as being the person with it.

A Beautiful Mind overall was a very insightful movie. It showed me what people with schizophrenia see and deal with.  One thing that really stuck out to me was when the doctor told John Nash, the main character, that John couldn't think up an escape from the disease because the disease was in his head.  I felt like this was very eye-opening.  It showed me that people with schizophrenia honestly think there is something wrong.  I felt bad for John when he realized that every fond memory he had about solving the war codes and running away from danger were all delusions.  Every thing that he loved about life didn't even exist and was all fiction. My favorite character was probably John's wife, Alicia.  She put up with a lot of stress and her way of doing things was very witty. During the movie, Alicia shows John all of the large envelopes that he had written and spent so much time doing.  In the envelopes were the codes that he had worked hard to uncover.  When John realized that none of the envelopes had been opened, he became aware that he had a problem.  I felt like this was a turning point in the movie. The movie began to get confusing around the time that he was checked into the mental hospital.  I personally was unsure as to why he was going there.  I thought everyone thought he was crazy, but because he was working for the government he couldn't disclose any information or tell anyone about what he was actually doing.  I thought he was being admitted because he couldn't explain the reasoning behind his actions.  Later we realize that he does have a problem and is then diagnosed with schizophrenia. I look up to John for being able to begin to learn to ignore the delusions. Overall, this movie was a very good movie and was well portrayed.

We watched the movie a beautiful mind in class which was about a genius of a guy named John Nash, he was extremely good at math and became a professor at Princeton University,  he also was working for the government to stop the Russians from invading.  In class we've learned about schizophrenia and other different psychological disorders. It is where people become very paranoid and have delusions. In the movie the main character was suffering from schizophrenia, he had delusions about his job, he believed he was working for the government to help them stop the Russians, he believed the Russians were coming after him and thought he had a roommate when he never really did and he believed that his “roommate” had a niece. Another thing we learned about was how to treat these kinds of disorders and disorders like schizophrenia used to be with electric shocks which is supposed to shake up something in the brain to make people stop seeing things.  In the movie when John got admitted into the mental hospital they did this to him, they made him do that 4 times a week until they thought he was good enough to just be taking medication. We learned about depth-of-processing effect which is when you give meaning to words/things in order to help you remember them, and when they did experiments with them they found that patients with schizophrenia were also able to use this technique to help them. John was really good at math and it is possible he used this to help him remember everything he knew.