Criminal series are becoming more and more popular every day. CSI was a very popular American series in the early 2000s. Now real crime series are all over Netflix's library. You may have heard of Robert Hendy-Freegard, the conman and impostor from The Puppet Master series. Maybe you heard of Jeffrey Dahmer, the American serial killer who murdered 17 individuals over 13 years. Maybe films like The Joker or the Silence of the Lambs are more well-known to you. In any case, what all these have in common is that they bring together crime and psychology. However, films themselves and the audience are usually unsure of the difference between criminal psychology, forensic psychology and criminology. And they are not to blame; it's not easy to distinguish them.
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Jetzt kostenlos anmeldenCriminal series are becoming more and more popular every day. CSI was a very popular American series in the early 2000s. Now real crime series are all over Netflix's library. You may have heard of Robert Hendy-Freegard, the conman and impostor from The Puppet Master series. Maybe you heard of Jeffrey Dahmer, the American serial killer who murdered 17 individuals over 13 years. Maybe films like The Joker or the Silence of the Lambs are more well-known to you. In any case, what all these have in common is that they bring together crime and psychology. However, films themselves and the audience are usually unsure of the difference between criminal psychology, forensic psychology and criminology. And they are not to blame; it's not easy to distinguish them.
Criminal psychology emerged in the 18th century due to the conflict between medical experts and judges when sentencing individuals for criminal behaviour. In this way, criminal psychology includes four main topics: philosophy, medicine, law and biology. Today, criminal psychology is defined in the following way:
Criminal psychology is a branch of psychology that aims to understand and comprehend the views, thoughts, intentions, actions and reactions of individuals who commit crimes.
In short, criminal psychology is a subfield of psychology that focuses on understanding the mind of criminals. Therefore, criminal psychology uses psychological principles to explain this specific kind of behaviour.
The questions that criminal psychologists aim to answer are the following:
Criminal psychology studies criminal behaviour as well as delinquency types. This is not only done by assessing individuals but also by conducting research with non-criminal individuals. Other functionalities that a criminal psychologist could engage in are the investigations of the psychological factors that lead to crime, the assessment of how dangerous certain individuals are, and the development of psychological and psychotherapeutic interventions for criminals.
In essence, criminal psychology refers to studying crime that doesn't place all the emphasis on the criminals themselves but on societies too.
At this point, you may be wondering which facts criminal psychologists establish. What do criminal psychologists do? Here we review the dissimilar tasks that criminal psychologists convey to come up with their facts and conclusions.
Criminal psychologists can be recruited as law enforcement personnel in the criminal justice system to provide their professional insights and advise other specialists. They can support police officers, for example, by helping create questions to be asked during interrogation.
Furthermore, they can provide unique insights about an investigation, thus supporting the criminal assessment.
One of the primary responsibilities of criminal psychologists is to assess a suspect's or a criminal's mental state using psychological testing.
These assessments determine whether the person was healthy when the crime was committed and would allow the detection of signs of psychiatric or personality disorders in other cases.
How someone is punished differs depending on their mental state when they committed a crime.
Many criminal psychologists use research practices to test their theories and models scientifically. These studies could, for example, assess eyewitnesses' testimony's veracity or criminals' memory, among other topics.
Marr et al. (2021) conducted a study assessing eyewitness testimony's accuracy under different stress levels. In the study, they compared memory experts with laypeople. Eyewitness memory experts did not benefit from experiencing stress while encoding memories. However, this was different for laypeople, who actually could encode memories better when experiencing stress.
Another main task of criminal psychologists is to provide chances for prisoners' rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation refers to processes that help ex-convicts/ criminal offenders reintegrate into society to deter individuals from committing criminal acts again.
Some techniques used include therapy, anger management classes, AA meetings and teaching them new skills that can be used later.
Punishment is the practice of awarding consequences to individuals' actions so that these are not repeated over time. It is based on operant conditioning, which suggests that people will repeat the rewarded behaviours and will cease those punished.
The role of a criminal psychologist is to assess the mental state the person was in when committing the crime, which will impact the sentence they will receive. Some punishments require that the person presents intention when committing criminal behaviour.
Individuals with mental illnesses, however, may receive different punishments if criminal psychologists can state that the individual did not intend their actions. In some cases, they cannot be judged as responsible for their actions due to their psychological state.
Some of the types of punishments used in western countries are:
Different from criminal psychology, criminology is the academic discipline that uses the scientific method to study crime to control and prevent it.
These are the major perspectives of criminology:
Major perspective | Central stand |
Choice Perspective | Individuals exert their free will when committing a crime and should be punished for their behaviour. |
Biological Perespective | Crime occurs as a consequence of offenders' anatomy, neurology and genetics. |
Structural Perspective | Socio-economic status, culture and norms make some individuals more likely to commit criminal behaviours. |
Process Perspective | Crime is a consequence of individuals' upbringing and learning experiences, which parents, teachers and peer pressures influence. |
Conflict Perspective | Crime is explained in terms of power dynamics. Poverty and class condition can explain criminal behaviour. |
Developmental Perspective | Crime occurs due to biological, socio-psychological, economic and political forces. |
Given that criminology focuses on controlling and preventing crime, it has become a multidisciplinary field in which psychology is only one contributor. Given the multidisciplinary of the academic discipline, other areas such as neuroscience, public health, epidemiology, law and sociology also contribute to criminology.
Criminal anthropology, for example, is a branch that investigates the different aspects of the human experience, which include criminal behaviour. Criminal anthropology explores how humans evolved thousands of years ago and explain how criminal behaviours have changed over time.
Criminal psychology and forensic psychology are terms which are widely interchanged. And although they both emphasise the individual committing the crime, they are essentially two different branches of psychology and lead to different career paths.
Forensic psychology is the application of psychological theory and research to the legal arena.
Unlike criminal psychology, forensic psychology can determine a crime's effects on the victim. Further, forensic psychology assesses the mental state a person is currently in when they commit a criminal offence.
A forensic psychologist would engage in a divorce case in which the custody of the children is to be determined. The specialist would assess the children, their needs, and their parents. In such a case, the children are perceived as vulnerable individuals and potential victims.
The psychological evaluation would then determine whether both parents are supportive figures in the children's lives, in which case shared custody would be sentenced.
Differently, if one of the parents is not perceived as a supportive or safe figure for the children, the other parent would receive full custody. If both are deemed inappropriate, they may be given to another guardian or placed into the care system.
As you can see in the example above, forensic psychology is the branch that offers assistance and consulting to the process of administration of justice within the scopes of the courts and other civil matters.
Criminal psychology is central to the successful functioning of societies. The research that criminal psychologists conduct can greatly identify potential offenders and allow authorities to prevent future crimes. Furthermore, since criminal psychology emphasises societies rather than individuals, it becomes necessary to create societal conditions that bring harmony and prevent harm.
Forensic psychology is the application of psychological theory and research to the legal arena.
Criminal psychology is a branch of psychology that aims to understand and comprehend the views, thoughts, intentions, actions and reactions of individuals who commit crimes.
No, criminal psychology aims to explain and comprehend the psychological profile of those committing crimes, while criminology is the academic discipline that uses the scientific method to study crime.
No, criminal psychology aims to explain and comprehend the psychological profile of those committing crimes, while forensic psychology is the application of psychological theory and research to the legal arena.
The hypothesis and perspectives suggested explaining crime are the choice perspective, the biological perspective, the structural perspective, the process perspective, the conflict perspective, and the developmental perspective.
The main difference is their area of focus. While criminal psychology aims to explain and comprehend the psychological profile of those committing crimes, forensic psychology applies psychological theory and research to the legal arena.
What's rehabilitation?
The word rehabilitation refers to the assumption that people aren't criminals on a permanent basis and that there's a way to restore a criminal to a useful life.
What's the goal of rehabilitation?
The goal of rehabilitation is to prevent offenders from committing habitual actions and offending, also referred to as recidivism.
How is recidivism defined?
Recidivism defines the act of an individual who will repeat an undesirable behaviour after they have experienced negative consequences of that behaviour. Recidivism is a term usually employed and in relation to substance misuse and criminal behaviour.
How community rehabilitation efforts can affect recidivism?
Instead of punishing the criminal, rehabilitation, through mechanisms and steps of education and therapy will bring the criminal to a more peaceful state of mind by reinstating an attitude which will be helpful to the society.
Is rehabilitation effective?
Research suggests that punitive responses in relation to offending were not successful to reduce criminal recidivism. Rehabilitation programmes instead have an important impact in decreasing rates of re-offending.
What's restorative justice?
Restorative justice is an approach used to show offenders the damage they have caused by creating a meeting between the criminal and the victim to open a line of communication for reconciliation.
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