UPDATED GUIDANCE AND LECTURE NOTES FOR THE COMPLETION OF YOUR CRIMINOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY ASSESSMENT

Humphrey Akhaine, Lecturer.

NOTE THAT THIS IS A REPORT, NOT AN ESSAY.

WORD-LIMIT – 1,500 – 2000 WORDS

Submission Date:  2Oth May 2022

USE THE FOLLOWING HEADINGS:

1. INTRODUCTION – Here you set out the objectives of report, namely, the assessment criteria you are required to meet: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1.  Objectives can be broadly stated if you do not want to write out individual assessment criteria.
2. A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF LITERATURE REGARDING SERIAL KILLERS
3. Before you answer this section, google M. Silkes’ ‘Exploring the phenomenon of serial killing’.  Read the article, but please feel free to find whatever article(s) works for you.
4. Differentiate between definitions of serial killing, spree killing and mass murder – you may want to challenge definitions of serial killing in particular, from your wider readings, otherwise your response may not be analytical in style.
5. Consider the motivation for serial killing – this relates to types of serial killers, such as visionary killer, mission-oriented killer, hedonistic killer (lust, thrill and comfort killer), power and control.  Please google ‘Types of Serial Killers’ for definitions of these types of killers.  Name a serial killer associated with at least one of the types and, in a couple of sentences, summarise who they are and what they did – you can google ‘names of serial killers’ and select a name you could relate to one of your types of serial killers.
6. Outline and comment on several characteristics of a serial killer – google ‘Characteristics of a serial killer’ and select the one published by www.FBI.gov, entitled Serial Murder. This does appear to be a lengthy read, but please quickly skim through, ignoring irrelevant information and selecting three characteristics you would like to comment on, e.g. proceed directly further down your reading here to some of the myths the article proposed, for indications of three characteristics you may wish to briefly outline and comment on.
7. It is important that you reference your work from start to finish.
8. AN EVALUATION OF APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR, INCLUDING BIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS

• BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS – this refers to biological factors and I advise you do no more than TWO of the following factors to allow for critical evaluation of the arguments:
• Genetics, e.g. twin studies.
• Chromosomes, e.g. alpha male syndrome (google ‘The Myth of the ‘Supermale’ and the extra Y chromosome by www.vox.com for the alpha male theory).
• Chemical imbalance, e.g. dopamine in ADHD sufferers and prison population as a result.  If you are not sure how dopamine could influence an ADHD sufferer to commit crime, go to You Tube and listen to Dr. Russell Barkley’s  ‘30 Essential Ideas You Should Know About ADHD, 3A The Five Executive Functions’.
• Physical appearance and somatotypes (also known as body types) – you may want to google Lombroso’s description of the physical appearance of a criminal, or you could look into any good Sociology books on crime for Sheldon’s somatotypes (or you could google instead Sheldon’s somatotypes), e.g. the mesomorph (muscular, athletic build) is more likely to commit crime than the ectomorph (thin) and endomorph (round-shaped).
• It is important that you reference your work from start to finish.
• PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS – please do no more than TWO of the following psychological factors and you must critically evaluate or critique the arguments:
• Mental illness, e.g. we know of course there are people with mental health issues who have committed crime, including those with personality and psychotic disorders.
• You may want to do Bowlby’s attachment theory, which is a reflection of psychodynamic theory, since Bowlby linked ‘maternal deprivation’ in early childhood to anti-social behaviour, given his 44 Juvenile Thieves study.  It is up to you whether you also link traumatic events in early childhood or later life to crime.
• Freud’s personality theory (psychoanalysis, which influences Bowlby’s theory too) in terms of the inter-relationships between the three aspects of personality: id (pleasure principle, which requires us to seek instant pleasure or gratification, based on instinctive desires or drives, and hence it is biologically-driven), ego (reality principle, which allows us to reason things through), superego (morality principle, or conscience, or ideas of right and wrong learnt from our environment).  According to Freud, the criminal has a strong id and a weak superego.
• Eysenck’s personality theory, namely, the claim that extroverts are more likely to commit crime than introverts.  You will find Eysenck in good Psychology books, or google Eysenck’s personality theory and crime
• Bandura’s social learning theory – the idea that we learn by imitation or copying others and identification (being influenced by role models).  This theory is diametrically opposed to biology as the reason for crime and focuses instead on how the environment in which we live can influence criminal behaviour.  You could refer to Bandura’s ‘Bobo Doll’ study – this you can easily find in Psychology or Childcare books, or google instead.

Although you are not required to do sociological theories, you may want to google ‘Rational Choice Theory’ to help you mediate between the extremes of biology on the one hand and environment on the other hand, as rational choice theory lays the blame for criminality squarely on the individual and not his or her biology or environment deterministically.

• A DISCUSSION OF VICTIM BLAMING AND BLAME CULTURE – For any information you use here, please reference Chapman, S., Holborn, M., Moore, S. and Aiken, D. (2016) Sociology: AQA A Level Year 2.  London: HarperCollins Publishers.

• Refer to United Nations’ (1985) definition of victims of crime as ‘persons who, individually or collectively, have suffered harm, including physical or mental injury, emotional suffering, economic loss or substantial impairment of their fundamental rights through acts or omissions that are in violation of criminal laws’ (cited in Newburn, T. (2013) Criminology.  London: Routledge).  Thus, victim blaming mayloosely be defined as blaming the person who has been caused harm as responsible for what happened to them.  For instance, we could use a common example, such as ‘If she did not visit him at his home so late at night, or if she was decently dressed, then she would not have been raped’.  Is this normally the perception of society in which we live? In which case you see evidence of a blame culture based on societal norms and values.
• Present the definition of victim blaming as problematic, e.g. Who is the victim and who is the perpetrator?  For instance, when Tony Martin, the farmer, killed in self-defence one of the robbers who entered his property late at night, who is the victim and who is the perpetrator?  Therefore you can see that defining a victim is not as easy as we first thought.
• Theories on victim blaming or victimology studies (DO TWO THEORIES AND CRITIQUE THE THEORIES IN TERMS OF WHETHER YOU AGREE WITH WHAT THEY SAY OR NOT AND GIVE REASONS FOR YOUR ANSWER):  (1) The Just World Hypothesis proposed by Lerner – The idea that victims got what they deserved and are therefore to blame, (2) Positivist victimology – the idea that people are victims of crime because of who they are or because of certain characteristics they possess, which is why they are being targeted. Two key terms associated with this definition are ‘victim proneness’ and ‘victim precipitation’ – you can search the meanings of these terms.  The reason we call this a ‘positivist’ theory is because the evidence they produce is based on statistics, which they say show conclusively that certain people are likely to be victims of crime, e.g. the elderly, ethnic minority, men compared to women apart from domestic violence, etc.,  (3)  Radical victimology – the idea, from a Marxist perspective, that we can’t dwell on statistics as it is unhelpful to blame anyone irrespective of whether they are a victim or a perpetrator, rather both perpetrator and victim are victims of inequality in our society, and it is this inequality in society that is the main cause of crime in society, (4) Critical victimology – focuses on power-relations between the powerful and the powerless, with the powerful violating the rights of the powerless, e.g. women are victims of male patriarchy, or corporate crime whereby the rich and powerful get away with oppressing the poor by lobbying governments not to take action that would preserve the lives of vulnerable poor, e.g. on environmental pollution and poor housing, etc.
• Conclusion – Summarise key points and draw your own personal conclusion from the arguments presented.
• Reference List