Chapter 1: Turning to Crime (Applied Psychology - Component 03)
Welcome to Applied Psychology: Criminal Psychology! In this chapter, we explore a fundamental question that psychologists, judges, and communities have asked for centuries: Why do people turn to crime?
Don't worry if psychological theories of crime seem complex or overwhelming at first. We will break this chapter down into bite-sized, logical steps. Under the OCR H569 specification, we explore three core areas:
1. Biological Explanations: Looking at brain dysfunction and genetics (featuring the famous study by Raine et al., 1997).
2. Social & Cognitive Explanations: Looking at external influences, personality, and moral reasoning (featuring Cooper and Mackie, 1986, Heaven, 1996, and Kohlberg's Moral Development).
3. Strategy for Crime Prevention: Practical applications like Zero-Tolerance Policing based on the Broken Windows theory by Wilson and Kelling (1982).
Section 1: Biological Explanations of Crime
1. The Biological Idea in a Nutshell
Biological explanations suggest that an individual’s physiology—such as their brain structure, neurotransmitter function, or inherited genetics—predisposes them to antisocial or aggressive behaviour. Rather than choosing crime purely out of free will, an individual might have biological vulnerabilities that make impulse control harder or impair their emotional empathy.
Analogy to Help You Understand: Think of the human brain as a modern car. The prefrontal cortex is the brake pedal (stopping us from acting out reckless impulses), while the limbic system (including the amygdala) is the engine and accelerator (generating raw emotions like anger and fear). If the brake pedal is worn out or disconnected, controlling where the car goes when the engine revs up becomes extremely difficult.
2. Key Research Study: Raine et al. (1997)
Brain abnormalities in murderers indicated by positron emission tomography (PET).
Aim
To investigate whether individuals who had committed murder or manslaughter and pleaded Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) showed evidence of brain dysfunction in areas linked to aggression, such as the prefrontal cortex and amygdala.
Sample
* Experimental Group: 41 murderers (39 males, 2 females) charged with murder or manslaughter in California, all pleading NGRI.
* Control Group: 41 matched participants (matched on age, sex, and mental health diagnoses where appropriate; for example, 6 participants with schizophrenia were matched with 6 schizophrenic non-murderers).
* Total Sample: \(41 + 41 = 82\) participants.
Method & Procedure
* Design: Quasi-experiment (the independent variable—being an NGRI murderer or a control—was an existing characteristic and could not be directly manipulated).
* Procedure:
1. All participants were kept medication-free for at least two weeks before scanning.
2. Participants were injected with a radioactive tracer called fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG).
3. They immediately engaged in a Continuous Performance Task (CPT)—a visual target-spotting task designed to activate specific brain areas—for 32 minutes.
4. After 32 minutes, participants were transferred to a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner to measure glucose metabolic activity in various cortical and subcortical brain structures.
Key Findings
The PET scans revealed distinct differences between the brains of NGRI murderers and the control group:
* Lower Activity (Deficits):
- Prefrontal Cortex: Significantly lower glucose metabolism. This area controls impulse regulation, planning, and delayed gratification.
- Corpus Callosum: Reduced activity (the bridge connecting the left and right hemispheres).
- Left side of the Amygdala and Hippocampus: Lower activity compared to controls.
* Higher / Asymmetric Activity:
- Right side of the Amygdala, Thalamus, and Hippocampus: Greater activity relative to the left side.
Conclusions
1. Murderers pleading NGRI exhibit a distinct "network of abnormal brain functions."
2. Deficits in the prefrontal cortex suggest a biological predisposition to impulsivity, loss of self-control, and emotional outbursts.
3. Abnormalities in the limbic system (amygdala and hippocampus) suggest impaired emotional processing, fear conditioning, and difficulty learning from consequences.
Examiner Warning: Correlation vs. Causation
Crucial Exam Tip: Do not state that "brain damage causes people to become murderers." Raine explicitly stated that brain dysfunction does not directly cause violence. It creates a biological predisposition or vulnerability that interacts with social, psychological, and environmental triggers.
Quick Review - Key Brain Regions in Raine et al. (1997):
* Prefrontal Cortex: Low activity \(\rightarrow\) Impaired impulse control & poor judgment.
* Amygdala (Subcortical/Limbic): Abnormal asymmetry \(\rightarrow\) Inability to regulate fear, emotion, and aggression.
* Corpus Callosum: Low activity \(\rightarrow\) Reduced communication between rational (left) and emotional (right) brain hemispheres.
Section 2: Social and Cognitive Explanations of Crime
Biological factors explain internal vulnerabilities, but what about the social environment, personality, and thought processes? Social and cognitive psychologists argue that our upbringing, media exposure, traits, and moral logic guide whether we turn to antisocial behaviour.
1. Social Learning and Media: Cooper and Mackie (1986)
* Focus: Investigated the impact of aggressive video games on children's subsequent aggressive behaviour.
* Background Theory: Social Learning Theory (SLT) and Cognitive Priming. SLT suggests we learn behaviour by observing role models, imitating actions, and receiving vicarious reinforcement.
* Findings: Playing aggressive video games (such as Missile Command) led to an increase in aggressive play among girls, though it had less immediate observable impact on boys' play behaviour.
* Significance for Crime: Demonstrates that exposure to media violence can prime aggressive scripts in memory, lowering inhibitions toward aggressive or rule-breaking behaviour.
2. Personality Traits and Delinquency: Heaven (1996)
* Focus: Longitudinal study examining how adolescent personality traits relate to delinquent behaviour over time.
* Key Traits Tested: Psychoticism, Extraversion, and Self-Esteem.
* Findings: Psychoticism emerged as the strongest and most consistent predictor of delinquency and rule-breaking.
* Why? High psychoticism is characterised by coldness, lack of empathy, impulsivity, and hostility. Individuals high in this trait care less about social norms or the suffering of others, making them more prone to turning to crime.
3. Cognitive Moral Development: Kohlberg
Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg proposed that humans progress through sequential stages of moral reasoning as they mature:
* Pre-conventional Level (Stages 1 & 2): Decisions are based entirely on self-interest, seeking immediate rewards, and avoiding direct punishment. ("It's only wrong if I get caught.")
* Conventional Level (Stages 3 & 4): Decisions are based on social approval, upholding the law, and maintaining social order. ("Rules exist to keep society safe.")
* Post-conventional Level (Stages 5 & 6): Decisions are guided by universal ethical principles and individual rights.
Link to Crime: Criminal offenders are disproportionately stuck at the Pre-conventional level. Because their moral thinking is limited to avoiding personal punishment, they will readily commit a crime if they believe there is a low chance of getting caught.
Pitfall to Avoid: Moral Development \(\neq\) Intelligence
Common Mistake: Never confuse low moral development with low intelligence (IQ). A criminal can be a mastermind with a very high IQ (e.g., capable of complex financial fraud), yet operate at a primitive, pre-conventional stage of moral reasoning because their choices are driven solely by reward and evasion of detection.
Section 3: Strategies for Crime Prevention (Application)
1. The Theory: Broken Windows (Wilson & Kelling, 1982)
In their influential article Broken Windows, James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling argued that minor disorder and environmental decay directly encourage serious criminal behaviour.
How the Theory Works (Step-by-Step):
1. Initial Disorder: A window in an abandoned building is broken and left unrepaired.
2. Signal of Neglect: The unrepaired window signals to the community that nobody is watching, nobody is in charge, and nobody cares.
3. Escalation of Minor Incidents: More windows get broken, graffiti accumulates, litter spreads, and petty anti-social behaviour (e.g., panhandling, public drinking) increases.
4. Community Retreat: Law-abiding citizens feel unsafe, stay indoors, and stop intervening in their neighbourhood.
5. Serious Crime Takes Over: Criminals perceive the area as an unregulated, vulnerable zone, paving the way for serious, violent crime to flourish.
2. Practical Application: Zero-Tolerance Policing (ZTP)
What is it? A strict law enforcement strategy where police crack down relentlessly on low-level "quality-of-life" offences and petty crimes (such as vandalism, littering, graffiti, public drunkenness, and fare evasion) before they can escalate into major offences.
Core Features of Zero-Tolerance Policing:
* High Police Visibility: Placing active, proactive police patrols in run-down or high-disorder areas.
* Immediate Action: No warnings for minor infractions; offenders are stopped, fined, or arrested immediately.
* Environmental Repair: Rapid clean-up of graffiti, trash, and physical damage to restore community pride and signal social order.
Section 4: OCR Exam Success - Bringing It All Together
Component 03: Part C Application Questions
In Part C of your Applied Psychology exam, you are often asked to suggest and justify a strategy to deal with an applied criminal scenario. To gain top marks, always connect your practical strategy directly to the psychological evidence you have studied.
The 3-Step Strategy Formula:
1. State the Strategy clearly: (e.g., Implement Zero-Tolerance Policing by deploying foot patrols to target minor anti-social behaviour and graffiti).
2. Link to Theory: (e.g., Based on Wilson and Kelling's Broken Windows theory, which states that visible signs of disorder encourage lawlessness).
3. Justify with Psychological Evidence: (e.g., By curbing minor crimes early, we change the social cues that influence cognitive decision-making, ensuring pre-conventional thinkers perceive a high risk of detection).
Quick Summary & Key Takeaways
* Biological (Raine et al., 1997): NGRI murderers show lower metabolic activity in the prefrontal cortex (loss of self-control) and abnormal asymmetric activity in the limbic system (fear/aggression processing). Brain abnormalities create vulnerabilities, not direct causes.
* Social / Media (Cooper & Mackie, 1986): Violent video games can act as a catalyst for aggression through social learning and cognitive priming.
* Personality (Heaven, 1996): Psychoticism (coldness, lack of empathy) is the strongest personality predictor of delinquency over time.
* Cognitive (Kohlberg): Criminal behaviour is linked to Pre-conventional moral reasoning (focused purely on punishment vs reward).
* Strategy (Wilson & Kelling, 1982): Zero-Tolerance Policing repairs "broken windows" by punishing low-level offences immediately, deterring serious crime.