1. PowerPoint presentation created by
Chapter 6 Psychological and Psychiatric Foundations of Criminal Behavior
Frank Schmalleger
PowerPoint presentation created by
Ellen G. Cohn, Ph.D.

2. Key Terms Forensic psychology: Forensic psychiatry:
The application of the science and profession of psychology to questions and issues relating to law and the legal system
Forensic psychiatry:
A medical subspeciality applying psychiatry to the needs of crime prevention and solution, criminal rehabilitation, and issues of the criminal law

3. Major Principles of Psychological Theories
The individual is the primary unit of analysis
Personality is the major motivational element within individuals
Crimes result from abnormal, dysfunctional, or inappropriate mental processes within the personality

4. Major Principles of Psychological Theories
Criminal behavior may be purposeful for the individual insofar as it addresses certain felt needs
Normality is generally defined by social consensus
Defective, or abnormal, mental processes may have a variety of causes

5. Theory in Perspective Psychiatric Criminology Period: 1930s – present
Also known as Forensic Psychiatry
A complex set of drives and motives operating from recesses deep within the personality to determine behavior
Period: 1930s – present
Concepts: psychopath, sociopath, antisocial and asocial personality

6. Early Psychological Theories
Two main threads:
Conditioning
The frequency of a behavior can be increased or decreased through reward, punishment or association with other stimuli
Personality disturbances and diseases of the mind
Psychopathy and mental disease

7. The Psychopath Psychopathy: Psychopath/sociopath:
A personality disorder characterized by antisocial behavior and lack of affect
Psychopath/sociopath:
An individual who has a personality disorder, especially one manifested in aggressively antisocial behavior and who is lacking in empathy

8. The Mask of Sanity
Hervey M. Cleckley (1941) – developed concept of a psychopathic personality
Psychopath as “moral idiot”
Poverty of affect – inability to accurately imagine how others think and feel

9. Psychopathic Characteristics
Superficial charm and “good intelligence”
Absence of delusions
Absence of nervousness
Inability to feel guilt or shame
Unreliability
Chronic lying
Ongoing antisocial behavior
Poor judgment
Self-centeredness and inability to love
Social unresponsiveness
Poorly integrated sex life
Failure to follow a life plan

10. Antisocial Personality Disorder
Antisocial/asocial personality
Individuals who are basically unsocialized and whose behavior pattern brings them into repeated conflicts with society
Individuals who exhibit an antisocial personality are said to be suffering from antisocial personality disorder (ASPD)

11. Causes of ASPD Somatic causes - based on physiological features
Malfunction of CNS
Psychogenic causes – rooted in early interpersonal experiences
Inability to form attachments early in life
Sudden separation from mother early in life
Other forms of early insecurity

12. Personality Types and Crime
Hans Eysenck – Crime and Personality (1964)
Crime as the result of fundamental personality characteristics
Three personality dimensions
Psychotics – most likely to be criminal
Extroverts
Neurotics

13. Early Psychiatric Theories
Psychiatric criminology
Envisions a complex set of drives and motives that operate from within the personality to determine behavior
Crime is caused by biological and psychological urges mediated through consciousness
Little emphasis on the role of the external environment

14. Theory in Perspective Psychoanalytic Criminology
Emphasizes the role of personality in human behavior
Sees deviant behavior as the result of dysfunctional personalities
Period: 1920s – present
Concepts: id, ego, superego, sublimation, psychotherapy, Thanatos, neurosis, psychosis, schizophrenia

15. The Psychoanalytic Perspective
Psychoanalysis:
Criminal behavior is maladaptive, the result of inadequacies inherent in the personality of the offender
Psychotherapy:
The attempt to relieve patients of their mental disorders through the application of psychoanalytic principles and techniques

16. Psychoanalytic Structure of Personality

17. The Psychoanalytic Perspective
Sublimation:
A process in which one item of consciousness is symbolically substituted for another
Improper sublimation may lead to crime
Thanatos – a death instinct or death wish
Neurosis:
Individuals are in touch with reality but may be anxious or fearful of certain situations
Most neuroses do not lead to crime but some may

18. The Psychotic Offender
Psychosis: mental illness characterized by a lack of contact with reality
Characteristics of psychotic individuals
A grossly distorted conception of reality
Inappropriate moods and mood swings
Marked inefficiency in getting along with others and caring for oneself
Schizophrenics and paranoid schizophrenics

19. Theory in Perspective Frustration-Aggression Theory
Frustration is a natural consequence of living and a root cause of crime
Criminal behavior as a form of adaptation when it results in stress reduction
Period: 1940s – present
Concepts: frustration, aggression, displacement, catharsis, alloplastic and autoplastic adaptation

20. The Link Between Frustration and Aggression
Freud: Aggression is a natural response to frustrating limits
Frustration-aggression theory (J. Dollard)
Direct aggression toward others is the most likely consequence of frustration
Aggression can be manifested in socially acceptable ways or engaged in vicariously by watching others act aggressively

21. Crime as Adaptive Behavior
Alloplastic adaptation:
Crime reduces stresses that the individual faces by producing changes in the environment (empowerment)
Autoplastic adaptation:
Crime leads to stress reduction as a result of internal changes in beliefs and value systems

22. Theory in Perspective Modeling Theory Period: 1950s – present
People learn how to behave by modeling themselves after others whom they have the opportunity to observe
Period: 1950s – present
Concepts: imitation, interpersonal aggression, modeling, disengagement

23. Modeling Theory
Gabriel Tarde’s three laws of imitation and suggestion:
People in close contact tend to imitate each other’s behavior
Imitation moves from the top down
New acts and behaviors either reinforce or replace old ones

24. Modeling Theory Albert Bandura’s modeling theory
Everyone is capable of aggression but must learn how to behave aggressively
Social learning factors determine what forms aggressive behavior takes, its frequency, the situations in which it is displayed, and the targets selected for attack
People learn to act by observing others

25. Modeling Theory
Aggression can be activated or provoked in various ways
Disengagement: people who devalue aggression may engage in it by constructing rationalizations to overcome internal inhibitions
Attributing blame to the victim
Dehumanization
Vindication of aggression by legitimate authorities
Desensitization from repeated exposure

26. Theory in Perspective Behavior Theory Period: 1940s – present
Individual behavior that is rewarded will increase in frequency, while that which is punished will decrease
Period: 1940s – present
Concepts: operant behavior, conditioning, stimulus-response, reward, punishment

27. Behavior Theory Stimulus-response approach
Operant behavior: behavior choices operate on the environment to produce consequences for the individual
When behavior results in rewards, it will probably become more frequent
When behavior results in punishment, the frequency of that behavior decreases

28. Behavior Theory Rewards increase the frequency of approved behavior
Positive rewards add something desirable
Negative rewards remove something distressful
Punishments decrease the frequency of unwanted behavior
Positive punishments add something undesirable
Negative punishments remove something desirable

29. Attachment Theory
Healthy personality development requires that children have a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with their mothers
Forms of attachment:
Secure attachment (a healthy form)
Anxious-avoidant attachment
Anxious-resistant attachment

30. Theory in Perspective Self-Control Theory Period: 1940s – present
The root cause of crime is found in a person’s inability to exercise socially appropriate controls over the self
Period: 1940s – present
Concepts: self-control, general theory, criminal opportunity

31. Self-Control Theory
Self control: A person’s ability to alter his or her own states and responses
Four types of self control
Impulse control
Control over the contents of the mind
Control over emotional and mood states
Performance control

32. Self-Control Theory Gottfredson and Hirschi – general theory of crime
Low self-control is the primary individual-level cause of crime
Self control: the degree to which a person is vulnerable to temptations of the moment

33. Insanity and the Law Insanity (legal): Insanity (psychological):
A legally established inability to understand right from wrong or to conform one’s behavior to the requirements of the law
Insanity (psychological):
Persistent mental disorder or derangement

34. Insanity and the Law Foucha v. Louisiana (1992)
Insanity Defense Reform Act (IDRA)
“Not guilty by reason of insanity” (NGRI)

35. Foucha v. Louisiana
Foucha v. Louisiana 504 U.S. 71 (1992) was a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court addressed the criteria for the continued commitment of an individual who had been found not guilty by reason of insanity. The individual remained involuntarily confined on the justification that he was potentially dangerous even though he no longer suffered from the mental illness that served as a basis for his original commitment.[1][2]

36. Insanity Defense Reform Act
The Insanity Defense Reform Act mirrors the M'Naughten rules except that it requires the defendant suffer from severe mental defect, and places the burden on the defendant to prove by clear and convincing evidence (higher than the preponderance of the evidence standard required of the defendant by most states following the M'Naughten Rules).

37. “Not guilty by reason of insanity”
plea in court of a person charged with a crime who admits the criminal act, but whose attorney claims he/she was so mentally disturbed at the time of the crime that he/she lacked the capacity to have intended to commit a crime.

38. Insanity and the Law M’Naughten Rule Irresistible-Impulse Test
Durham Rule
Substantial-Capacity Test
Brawner Rule

39. M’Naughten Rule
The M'Naghten Rule provides as follows: "Every man is to be presumed to be sane, and ... that to establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of mind, and not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong."

40. Irresistible-Impulse Test
In criminal law, irresistible impulse is a defense by excuse, in this case some sort of insanity, in which the defendant argues that they should not be held criminally liable for their actions that broke the law, because they could not control those actions.

41. Durham Rule
The Durham Rule or "product test" was adopted by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1954, in the case of Durham v. U.S. (214 F.2d 862), and states that "... an accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or defect". Durham was later overturned in the case U.S. v. Brawner, 471 F.2d 969 (1972). After the 1970s, U.S. jurisdictions have tended to not recognize this argument as it places emphasis on "mental disease or defect" and thus on testimony by psychiatrists and is argued to be somewhat ambiguous.

42. Substantial-Capacity Test
A test established by the Model Penal Code for the insanity defense, including elements of the McNaughten rules and the test of irresistible impulse by allowing the court to consider both awareness of wrongdoing and involuntary compulsion.

43. Brawner rule
States that a defendant is not responsible for criminal conduct when, as a result of a mental disease or defect, he or she lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality (wrongfulness) of the conduct or to conform his or her conduct to the requirements of the law.

44. Guilty But Mentally Ill
Individual may be held responsible for a criminal act, even though a degree of mental incompetence is present
Requirements for verdict
Every statutory element necessary for conviction proven beyond a reasonable doubt
Defendant found to have been mentally ill at the time of the crime
Defendant not found to have been legally insane at the time of the crime

45. Federal Provisions for the Hospitalization of Individuals Found NGRI
Mandatory psychological/psychiatric examination and hearing
Individual committed if release creates risk to persons or property due to present mental disease or defect
Individual discharged when facility director determines s/he has recovered from mental disease or defect

46. Social Policy and Forensic Psychology
Psychological theories continue to evolve
Focus on using past behavior to predict future behavior
Assessment of dangerousness
Identification of personal characteristics to predict future dangerousness

47. Social Policy and Forensic Psychology
Selective incapacitation
Policy based on the notion of career criminality
Seeks to protect society by incarcerating individuals deemed the most dangerous
Correctional psychology
Diagnosis and classification, treatment, and rehabilitation of offenders

48. Social Policy and the Psychology of Criminal Conduct
Donald Andrews and James Bonta (1994)
Practical synthesis of psychological approaches to criminal behavior
Not a new behavioral theory, a call for the application of what we understand
We know something about what works, now we need to make use of that knowledge

49. Criminal Psychological Profiling
The attempt to categorize, understand, and predict the behavior of certain types of offenders based on behavioral clues they provide
Based on the belief that conscious behavior is symptomatic of personality
Offender’s specific activities help clarify his/her personal characteristics, motivations, likely future behavior