Cognition

Criminal Thinking Patterns

Rational Choice Theory (Cornish and Clarke 1986) suggests that offenders aren’t impulsive; they think about what rewards a crime will bring them. Their decision is based on the cost-benefit analysis and if they feel they are likely to gain from committing a crime, then they are more likely to do it.

The sixty four million dollar question...If you knew the chances of being caught robbing your local bank was next to none, why don’t you do it?

• Individual differences plays a huge role here; perhaps you have lots to lose such as family, friends, children, etc
• Perhaps you wouldn’t get any excitement out of committing a crime like this
• Perhaps you are well off and don’t want the money
• You have a conscience
• Just a tiny risk of going to prison scares you and puts you off
• You’d rather work for a living
• Afraid of what people may think of you if they knew
• Religious ethics

Yochelson and Samenow (1976) studied the criminal personality and investigated offender’s thinking patterns in order to prevent criminal behaviour. This was a longitudinal study over 14 years using interviews.

There were 255 male participants in this study and they came from a variety of backgrounds. They were interviewed at different times over the 14 years. Some were in a psychiatric hospital. They had been found guilty of a crime but had used the defence of insanity and they also interviewed convicted prisoners. The experimenters used psychodynamic techniques to counsel and profile their subjects. However, out of the 255 participants, only 30 actually finished the programme and though Yochelson and Samenow created a treatment programme for them, only 9 managed to reform. 52 thinking errors were discovered. The ticks below show which apply;

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Examples of pathological thought processes that a psychopath may have are thoughts that are manipulative, without feeling for others and deceitful (Cleckley, 1941).

Hare’s test for Psychopathy reveals thoughts that relate to a grossly inflated view of one self, sly, clever, manipulative, callous, dispassionate, cold hearted and a failure to take any responsibility for one’s actions.

Charles Bronson; high profile criminal and spent many years in jail, especially solitary confinement for fighting convicts and prison guards. Many say he is a psychopath.

Ronnie Kray was considered a psychopath. He shot George Cornell in 1966 for calling him a ‘fat poof’.

Albert Hamilton Fish; paedophile, sadomasochists, cannibal and a vampire. Hannibal Lechter in ‘Silence of the Lambs’ was based on him.

Ted Bundy raped and killed his victims by bludgeoning or strangulation and even decapitated them and kept the severed heads in his room.

Moral Development

Jean Piaget (1932) suggested that children develop into their moral thinking as they get older.

Look at these scenarios are example of the following stages;

Premoral Stage -   Lucy snatched some sweets from the counter and ate them in the view of her mother and everyone else in the shop. She giggled at their angry faces.

Moral Relativity Stage - Matthew believed it was only fair to create a small book of rules to use for their new group and everyone got into a bit of a discussion as to what to include. He questioned someone’s idea for complete silence when they met in the playground as he didn’t think that was right to include.

Moral Realism Stage - Darren went quietly to his room. His father had told him not to take his sister’s card games again and said he would withdraw his pocket money for a week. Darren had been saving up for a new game so he wasn’t likely to go into Sophie’s room again without her permission.

Kohlberg (1975) developed Piaget’s ideas further. He presented boys of varying ages moral dilemmas and created a stage theory based on his results. Have a look at the dilemmas (Heinz’s dilemma is one of the dilemmas he used). What would you do? Click here for the dilemmas.

Kohlberg’s levels and stages can be seen below:

Level 1 Preconventional Morality

Stage 1 Obedience and Punishment

• Earliest stage; rules are fixed and need to obey to avoid punishment

Stage 2- Individualism and Exchange

• Doing what is right for reward

Level 2 Conventional Morality

Stage 3-Interpersonal Relationships

• Living up to expectations and conforming

Stage 4 Maintaining Social Order

• To maintain law and order and respecting authority

Level 3 Postconventional Morality

Stage 5 Social Contract and Individual Rights

• Doing what is morally right even though laws are important

Stage 6 Universal Principles

• Doing what is right because of following a developed conscience which has grown as a result of information about the world that relates to justice and equality

Criticisms of Kohlberg’s theory;

Justice is a central concern with the theory but emotional factors such as caring and compassion are important too.

Thinking in a moralistic way and acting in a moralistic way are two different things. There are acts that are against the law that may not be immoral and there are acts that are immoral but not against the law. It seems there is a confusion between moral development and law abiding. People could score at level 6 yet actually be committing murder for their cause.

Gilligan (1982) claimed the test was andocentric (male orientated)as the test centres around justice whereas women are more concerned with emotions to do with families and relationships.

Perhaps Kohlberg also hasn’t allowed for cultural variations. Some cultures emphasise the significance of the society while others don’t and this would have an effect on moral development

Social Cognition

Internal attribution is when an individual accepts full responsibility for their behaviour. External attribution is when an individual blames external factors for his crimes such as having a poor childhood, lack of money, no prospects, provocation, etc. Criminals need to have full internal attribution to lower their chances substantially of not committing a crime again.

Gudjohnssons and Bownes (2002) explored the attribution of blame with the type of crime committed to see if there was a relationship. 80 criminals who were serving sentences in Northern Ireland filled out the ‘Blame Attribution Inventory’ and the results gleaned from this showed that violent offenders tended to blame external reasons more than sex offenders or individuals who had committed crimes against property. Sexual offenders endured more guilt for their crimes whereas property offenders experienced the least guilty. Sex offenders were more likely to blame themselves than violent offenders.

This table shows the mean scores of the blame attribution

Strengths of the study

• Results are consistent with earlier findings
• Offers clear insight into how offenders of certain crimes think
• Can use results to work with offenders to alter their thinking patterns

Weaknesses of the study

• The prisoners may have not been telling the truth
• The offenders may have been trying to please for their own motives
• There wasn’t an allowance for social factors such as terrorism in Northern Ireland that could alter the results