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14 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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key concepts : defining crime |
- a criminal act that intentionally breaks the law -must cause harm or damage to a person or their property - time affects whether something is considered to be a crime - culture affects whether something is considered to be a crime |
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key concepts : measuring crime |
- official crime levels taken from police - only criminal acts counted not criminals - people may not be aware that they are a victim so don't report it - scared of consequence -may seem petty -may too be a criminal etc.. - british crime survey asks public to declare crime however people could lie .. |
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key concepts : criminal personality |
- psychologists believe criminals have a different personality to 'normal' people common characteristics : -impulsiveness ,pleasure seeking , lack of guilt, over optimistic & high self importance |
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core theory : biological theory |
- says that criminals are born criminals not made criminals. - a criminal personality can be inherited from parents heritability - amount of behaviour that is due to genetics |
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brain dysfunction |
genes might affect the way the brain works |
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prefrontal cortex |
- connects antisocial behaviour and fear - criminals may not fear consequences of actions |
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limbic system |
- controls agression, sexual behaviour and empathy -over reactive in criminals who do not empathise with victims |
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corpus callosum |
- links rational and irrational parts of brain - in murders connection is weak |
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temporal lobe |
- understand language and react to emotion - less active in psychopaths |
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facial features |
- genes might affect a criminals facial features - asymmetrical faces - sloping foreheads - glassy eyes - widows peak - crooked nose - high cheek bones |
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criticisms |
- ignores the role of upbringing (nurture) - crime could be learned and not inherited - not all criminals show brain dysfunction - can't only be one criminal gene - little evidence to support facial features theory |
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alternative theory : social learning theory |
- nurture -learn through observing and imitating: -significant others - role models caring ,in authority, similar to us + reward = reinforcement vicarious reinforcement - imitate someone to gain the same reward as them |
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core study : Mednick et al -1984- |
aim - to compare rates of criminal activity in the biological and adoptive parents or adoptees participants : 4000 adopted danish men procedure: investigated all danish adoptees between 1924 and 1947 they looked at : criminal convictions of adoptees, criminal convictions of biological parents & criminal convictions of adoptive parents results : if biological parents were criminals the adoptees were 2x more likely to be criminals than if biological parents were not criminals , if biological parents were criminals the adoptees were more likely to be criminals than if adoptive parents were criminals and if biological and adoptive parents were criminals then the adoptees were the most likely to be criminals |
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results |
- if biological parents were criminals the adoptees were 2x more likely to be criminals than if biological parents were not criminals , if biological parents were criminals the adoptees were more likely to be criminals then if adoptive parents were criminals and if biological
- adoptive parents were criminals then the adoptees were the most likely to be criminals - if biological and adoptive parents were criminals then the adoptees were the most likely to be criminals |
