Key research: Raine et al. (1997)

Background: physiological explanations of criminality (brain structure and function, genetics, hormones, autonomic underarousal) versus non-physiological ones (learning, labelling, poverty, upbringing).

Key research — Raine et al. (1997), Brain abnormalities in murderers indicated by positron emission tomography.

• Sample: 41 people charged with murder or manslaughter who pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI), each matched with a control on age and sex.
• Method: a quasi-experiment (the IV is a pre-existing group, so no cause and effect). A glucose tracer was injected and participants performed a continuous performance task before a PET scan.
• Findings: the NGRI group showed reduced glucose metabolism in the prefrontal cortex and in the corpus callosum, plus abnormal asymmetries in the amygdala, hippocampus and thalamus (lower activity on the left, higher on the right).
• Conclusion: violent offending in this group is associated with dysfunction in areas linked to impulse control and emotion — though Raine explicitly warned this does not show that brain dysfunction causes murder, nor that it applies to all violent offenders.
• Application: at least one biological strategy for preventing criminal behaviour — e.g. improved prenatal and early-childhood care, nutrition and diet supplementation, or treating head injury and substance misuse.

Key research: Hall and Player (2008)

Background: forensic evidence is supposed to be objective — but it is interpreted by human beings, and humans can be biased by motivation and context.

Key research — Hall and Player (2008), Will the introduction of an emotional context affect fingerprint analysis and decision-making?

• Sample and design: 70 fingerprint experts from the Metropolitan Police were given an ambiguous fingerprint on a scenario. Half read a low-emotional-context crime report (an alleged forgery); half read a high-emotional-context report (an alleged murder).
• Findings: of those who read the report, about 52% in the high-context condition said they felt the emotional context had affected their analysis — yet there was no significant difference between the two groups in their final decisions about the fingerprint.
• Conclusion: experts feel the pressure of emotional context, but experienced fingerprint analysts were not measurably swayed by it in their conclusions — a reassuring finding about expertise, though it does not rule out bias in more ambiguous or high-stakes real cases.
• Application: at least one strategy for reducing bias in the collection and processing of forensic evidence — e.g. sequential unmasking (giving the analyst only the information they need), blind verification by a second analyst, and separating the analyst from case narrative.

Hall and Player

Key research: Memon and Higham (1999)

Background: collecting evidence from witnesses and suspects — and the fact that memory is reconstructive, so how you ask determines what you get (Loftus and Palmer).

Key research — Memon and Higham (1999), A review of the cognitive interview. This is a review article, not an experiment — say so when you evaluate it.

• The four components of the cognitive interview: report everything, context reinstatement, change the order and change the perspective.
• What the review concludes: the CI reliably increases the number of correct details recalled compared with a standard interview — but it can also increase the number of incorrect details, so the overall accuracy rate may not improve as much as the raw recall figures suggest. It is hard to establish which components do the work, because studies vary in which they use; comparisons are muddied by differences in the control interview used; and interviewer training and social dynamics matter enormously.
• Application: at least one strategy for police interviews — e.g. train interviewers in context reinstatement and open-ended questioning, avoid leading questions, and interview witnesses separately and as soon as possible.

Which explanation or stage?

Tap a card, then tap where it belongs.

Key research: Dixon et al. (2002)

Background: juries are supposed to judge the evidence — but they can be persuaded by irrelevant characteristics of witnesses and defendants: attractiveness, race, class and accent.

Key research — Dixon et al. (2002), The role of accent and context in perceptions of guilt.

• Method: participants listened to a recorded exchange between a policeman and a suspect. The accent of the suspect was varied (a Birmingham accent versus a standard 'received pronunciation' accent), along with his race and the type of crime (blue-collar armed robbery versus white-collar cheque fraud). Participants then rated how guilty the suspect was.
• Findings: the suspect with the Birmingham accent was rated significantly more guilty than the one with the standard accent. The effect was strongest for the black, working-class suspect accused of the blue-collar crime — showing that accent interacts with race and crime type.
• Conclusion: accent triggers a stereotype of criminality; guilt judgements are contaminated by characteristics that are legally irrelevant.
• Application: at least one strategy to influence jury decision-making — e.g. presenting evidence in writing or through a neutral reader, judicial instructions on prejudice, and using written transcripts rather than audio where accent is not evidential.

Dixon et al.

Key research: Wilson and Kelling (1982)

Background: how the features of a neighbourhood and policing policy influence crime.

Key research — Wilson and Kelling (1982), Broken windows. This is an article proposing a theory, not an empirical study — a crucial evaluation point.

• The argument: visible signs of disorder — a broken window left unrepaired, graffiti, litter, public drunkenness — signal that nobody cares and that the area is unsupervised. That signal invites more disorder, drives law-abiding residents indoors, weakens informal social control, and creates the conditions for serious crime.
• The policy implication: police should focus on minor disorder and on maintaining order in neighbourhoods (foot patrol, community presence), not only on responding to serious crime. This became the intellectual basis for zero-tolerance policing.
• Evaluation: highly influential and intuitively powerful — but it is theory, not data; the causal claim is disputed (falls in crime in cities using zero tolerance coincided with many other changes); and zero-tolerance policing has been criticised for damaging police-community relations and for discriminatory enforcement.
• Application: at least one strategy for crime prevention — e.g. rapid repair of vandalism and graffiti, improved lighting and 'defensible space' design, neighbourhood watch, and community policing.

Key research: Haney et al. (1973)

Background: punishment and reform as responses to criminal behaviour, and what prison actually does to the people inside it.

Key research — Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973), A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison.

• Sample and method: 24 male students, screened as physically and mentally healthy, were randomly assigned to be prisoners or guards in a mock prison in the basement of Stanford's psychology department. Prisoners were arrested at home, deloused, given smocks and numbers; guards were given uniforms, dark glasses and batons.
• Findings: the study was planned to run for two weeks but was stopped after six days. Guards became increasingly authoritarian and abusive; prisoners became passive and depressed, and several had to be released early after extreme stress reactions. Zimbardo argued the situation and the roles, not the personalities, produced the behaviour — a situational explanation, linked to deindividuation and loss of personal identity.
• Application: at least one strategy for reducing reoffending — e.g. anger management and CBT programmes, education and employment training in prison, restorative justice, and reforming the prison regime itself so it does not brutalise.

Evaluate it hard. It is a landmark, but it has been heavily criticised: the sample was 24 self-selected male students; Zimbardo was both researcher and prison superintendent, so there were serious demand characteristics; the ethics (harm, difficulty withdrawing) are indefensible by modern standards; and later analyses argue guards were coached towards tough behaviour rather than spontaneously adopting the role. A strong answer says all of this.

Match the key research to its topic

Tap a study on the left, then the topic it is the key research for.

Haney et al.

Method spotlight

Debates in criminal psychology

• Individual vs situational: Raine (brain dysfunction in the offender) is an individual explanation; Wilson and Kelling (a disordered neighbourhood) and Haney (the prison role) are situational. The debate decides policy: treat the person, or change the environment.
• Freewill vs determinism: if a murderer's prefrontal cortex is underactive, are they responsible? This is the exact question the NGRI plea puts to a court — and Raine's data were gathered from people making that plea.
• Ethics: Haney et al. is the standard example of the harm a study can do. Hall and Player, by contrast, tested working professionals with minimal risk.
• Socially sensitive research: biological explanations of crime, and Dixon's findings about accent and race, both carry real risks of stigma and discriminatory policy — but not researching them leaves the bias unexamined.
• Usefulness: the cognitive interview, blind verification of forensic evidence and neighbourhood repair are all genuinely usable — but the evidence behind broken windows is a theory, not data.

Method spotlight

Which application?

Applying the option

How this option is assessed

Criminal psychology is one of the two applied options you choose in Section B of Component 03, alongside the compulsory Issues in mental health.

• Every topic can be examined through its background, its key research, or its application to a novel situation.
• The debates are unusually sharp here: individual vs situational (Raine vs Haney and Wilson), freewill vs determinism (the NGRI plea), ethics (Haney) and socially sensitive research (biological causes of crime, accent and race).
• Know which studies are not empirical: Wilson and Kelling (1982) is a theoretical article, and Memon and Higham (1999) is a review. Saying so is an easy evaluation mark.

Do not over-claim Raine. It is a quasi-experiment: it shows an association between brain dysfunction and violent offending in a very specific NGRI sample — nothing more.

The big ideas to know

Criminal psychology is one of four applied options — remember you choose TWO. Press Finish to see your score.