Important terms

Relates to or deals with the application of scientific knowledge to legal problems; Belonging to/ used in/ suitable to courts of judicature, or to public discussion and debate.

Theory of offending which believes that criminality is heritable; There is a distinct biological class of people that are prone to criminality. These exhibited atavistic (primitive) features.

Theory of offending which believes three predisposing traits to offending exist: desire for immediate gratification, placing greater desire on one’s personal desires over the ability to have good relationships with others, and a lack of guilt over one’s actions.

Theory of offending which believes bodily build is linked to personality and temperament so ectomorphs were solitary and restrained, while mesomorphs are energetic and adventurous and more prone to crime.

Theory of offending which believes crime is attributable to a chromosomal abnormality; An “extra Y” chromosome might “hyper masculinize” men.

Theory of offending which states that people engage in crime due to their association with others who engage in crime.

States that distal processes operate in the background of each episode of proximate processes. Proximate processes explain individual episodes of aggression; Incorporates biological factors, personality development, social processes, basic cognitive processes, and decision processes.

Threat/ control-override symptoms; Consist of delusional beliefs that produce feelings of personal threat and involve intrusion of thoughts that override self-control; paranoid psychotic symptoms. Mentally disordered people may engage in violence as violence seems like a reasonable response to the distorted realities they perceive as a result of their disorder.

Perceived or actual instrumental and/ or expressive provisions supplied by the community, social networks, and confiding partners.

→Instrumental support: Involves the relationship as a means to an end in which the individuals involved seek out information, advice, guidance, material aid, or financial assistance.

→Expressive support: Involves the relationship as an end in itself, in which the individuals involved seek out intimacy by sharing love and affection, venting frustrations, and mutually affirming each other’s worth and dignity.

Stressful life events increase psychological disorder, whereas social support decreases it.

Allocation or threatened withdrawal of sentiment, support, and mutual esteem are key elements influencing the likelihood of deviant behaviour.

States that 8 robust predictors f criminal behaviour reside within the individual or their social learning environment: criminal history, pro-criminal companions, pro-criminal attitudes, antisocial personality pattern, education/employment, family/marital, substance abuse, and leisure/recreation.

Rule set which states that, to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be proved that at the time of the offense, the person had such a “defect of reason” due to a disease of the mind, due to which they could not know the nature and quality of the act they were doing, or that they were unaware the act was wrong. Focuses on cognitive (effect on knowledge) rather than emotional and volitional factors (effect on ability to control conduct). Initially used for an insanity defence (before automatism).

Involuntary conduct resulting from some form of impaired consciousness.

Automatism arises from something external; leads to acquittal.

Automatism arises from something internal; leads to detention in psychiatric facility.

An involuntary piece of behavior over which an individual has no control. The behavior is usually inappropriate to the circumstances and may be out of character for the individual. Can be complex, coordinated and apparently purposeful and directed, though lacking in judgement. Afterwards the individual may have no, or partial and confused, recollection for their actions.

Guilty act; External element or physical act that resulted in the particular event, and whether the act was performed voluntarily.

Guilty mind; Relates to the fault element, whether the accused had the intent to murder or cause grievous bodily harm or at least showed reckless disregard for these issues.

The killing of one’s child; Homicide committed by a parent or adult in loco parentis, with a victim aged under 18.

Murder of a child under 24h of age.

Killing a child younger than 12 months.

Type of filicide-suicide where the spouse is also killed.

Allow anonymous legal abandonment of unharmed new-borns at designated sites.

Allows giving birth in a hospital anonymously and free of charge if the baby is given up for adoption.

Easily accessible incubators situated outside hospitals, where an unwanted baby can be deposited.

Difference between the real and recorded (apparent) criminality.

Atypical sexual arousal to objects, situations, or nonconsenting individuals. Intense and persistent sexual interest other than sexual interest in genital stimulation or preparatory fondling with phenotypically normal, physically mature, consenting human partners.

A paraphilia that is currently causing distress or impairment to the individual or a paraphilia whose satisfaction has entailed personal harm, or risk of harm, to others.

A paraphilia is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for having a paraphilic dis­order.

A paraphilia by itself does not necessarily justify or require clinical intervention.

→Courtship disorders: Distorted component of human courtship behaviour like voyeuristic, exhibitionistic and frotteuristic disorders. Type of anomalous activity preference.

→Algolagnic disorders: Involve pain and suffering like sexual masochism and sadism disorders. Type of anomalous activity preference.

→Anomalous target preferences: Disorders directed at other humans (paedophilic disorder) and disorders directed elsewhere (fetishistic and transvestic disorders).

Behaviour that causes mental distress to a person or makes the person a serious threat to the psychological and physical well-being of other individuals.

Sexual arousal from observing an unsuspecting person who is naked, disrobing, or engaging in sexual activity. Age criteria is > 18.

Sexual arousal from the exposure of one’s genitals to an unsuspecting person.

Act of touching or rubbing one’s genitals up against another person in a sexual manner without their consent.

Sexual arousal from the act of being humiliated, beaten, bound, or otherwise made to suffer.

Sexual arousal from the physical or psychological suffering of another person.

Sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviours involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child (age >13). Age criteria is > 16.

Sexual arousal from either the use of non-living objects or a highly specific focus on non-genital body part(s).

Engaging in sexually arousing cross-dressing.

Applies to presentations in which symptoms characteristic of a paraphilic disorder that cause significant distress or impairment but do not meet full criteria of any of the disorders mentioned on the other flashcards.

Applies when symptoms characteristic of a paraphilic disorder that cause distress or impairment occur, but do not meet the full criteria for any of the disorders mentioned on the other flashcards. Includes presentations in which there is insufficient information for a more specific diagnosis.

The value that social networks provide; a resource that is derived from and facilitated by social ties.

The willingness of local residents to take responsibility for the quality of local community life and work together to prevent local problems.

Assesses sexual arousal by measuring genital tumescence to potentially erotic stimuli. Most established physiological measure of deviant sexual interest.

Provides a measure of the attentional blink phenomenon; failure of internal processing mechanisms to attend to a particular stimulus within a sequence of stimuli because the individual’s attention has been captured by a cued stimulus displayed shortly beforehand.

Highest-risk offenders receive the most intensive treatment. Risk reduction services are provided to address the criminogenic needs of the offender, as well as manage dynamic risk factors. Also applied in the Dutch TBS system.

Focus is placed on the development of prosocial behaviours and meeting human needs appropriately. Also applied in the Dutch TBS system.

Children of violent or antisocial parents (especially mothers) are at high risk of multiple problems (criminal, mental health, addiction, risk taking behaviour).

Sleep disorders that manifest as excessive sleepiness or difficulty in initiating or maintaining sleep. (Insomnia, narcolepsy, circadian rhythm disorder).

Sleep-related states defined as unpleasant or undesirable behavioural or experiential phenomena that occur predominantly or exclusively during the sleep period; group of sleep disorders that are undesirable physical or experiential events that occur within entry into sleep, within sleep, or during arousals from sleep. Marked by significant skeletal muscle activity, and result in physical actions that are uncharacteristic of sleep.

Are NREM parasomnias. Represent an admixture of wakefulness and NREM sleep, resulting in the ability to perform complex behaviours without conscious awareness. Includes confusional arousals (sleep drunkenness/ sleep inertia), sleepwalking and sleep terrors.

REM parasomnia. There is absence of REM sleep atonia, which permits “acting out” of dreams. Usually occurs during later parts of sleep. Connected to degenerative neurological diseases (Parkinson’s, dementia, multiple system atrophy).

Ambulation occurring during sleep, with a persistence of sleep, an altered state of consciousness, or an impaired judgment during ambulation. Occurs during the deepest stages of NREM sleep (3 and 4). More likely to occur earlier in the night.

Sleep study that may reveal sleep apnoea, nocturnal epilepsy, confusional arousals or RBD.

Inability to recall any memories from the intoxicated period, even when prompted.

Ability to recall certain events from intoxicated period, but unaware that other memories are missing until reminded of the existence of these memory gaps. More common than en block blackouts.

Records brain activity in the form of waves.

Measures eye movements.

Measures muscle activity.

Views sleepwalking as an amalgam of NREM sleep and wakefulness. Views RBD as a combination of REM sleep and wakefulness.

Unconscious attitudes, including culturally learned associations or generalizations that we tend to think of as stereotypes, which introduce unjustified assumptions about other people and related evidence that can distort a person’s judgment and behaviour. Discriminatory biases based on implicit attitudes or implicit stereotypes.

A tendency to like or dislike, or to act favourably or unfavourably toward someone or something, but the actor does not understand their action as expressing that attitude. The evaluative valence of a trait is central.

A mental association between a social group or category and a trait, but the actor does not understand their action as expressing a stereotype. The content of an ascribed trait is central.

Ability to see bias in others, but not in ourselves.

Displacement of people’s responses along a continuum of possible judgments.

Task in which subconscious associations between mental representations of objects in memory are assessed. Measures reaction time. Individuals react faster to two stimuli that are strongly associated than to two stimuli that are less strongly associated.

When implicit and explicit attitudes toward the same object differ.

“Mistake-of-fact” shootings; Officer perceives that the suspect is armed when they are not, which might be a result of a misperception of an object or action.

Excessive reliance on numeric reference points when making numeric judgments.

Conviction of a factually innocent person.

Technique for identifying the major personality and behavioural characteristics of an individual based upon an analysis of the crimes they have committed. Process by which evidence, in particular that found at the crime scene, is analysed with a view to determining probable offender characteristics. Underpinned by consistency and homology assumption. Practice of predicting a criminal’s personality, behavioural, and demographic characteristics based on crime scene evidence. The investigative technique of analysing crime behaviours for the identification of probable offender characteristics.

Actions of any given offender are consistent across offences; the behavioural variation across offences for a particular offender is smaller than the behavioural variation between different offenders. Offenders behave in a generally consistent manner each time they offend.

Similar offence styles have to be associated with similar offender background characteristics. E.g. Aggressive individuals are aggressive both in their offense behaviour and in other situations. Offenders exhibiting similar criminal behaviour will possess similar characteristics.

-> Most studies support the case linkage to the consistency assumption. even though there is support for this assumption it shouldn’t be used in court.

-> Homology assumption is not supported at all.

The manner in which a particular offender behaves is distinguishable from that of another offender.

Individuals are prone to infer stable dispositions from behaviour even though evidence demonstrates that global trait constructs fail to accurately predict behaviour over time and across specific situations. People intuitively believe that behaviour is consistent cross-situationally, whereas research shows this is not the case.

Profilers might assign more personal responsibility to investigative success than to investigative failure.

Profilers might be more confident in their ability to make accurate predictions than they should be.

Profilers and the public may attribute perceived successes to the profiler’s abilities and discount the importance of the police officers’ contribution.

Profilers, police officers, and the public might be susceptible to misperceiving a profiler’s competence if they evaluate the accuracy of a profile after the apprehension of the criminal.

Profilers, police officers, and the public might perceive a relationship between a profiler’s predictions and the resolution of a case where one does not exist.

In some cases, criminal profiles appear to be the primary cause of the successful resolution of an investigation simply because a profile was obtained before the case was solved. It might be the case that people believe in CP due to the inability to distinguish between meaningful and meaningless patterns.

Involves looking for, often unconsciously, evidence that con-firms an existing belief and ignoring or filtering out evidence that disconfirms that belief.

People are inclined to accept ambiguous, vague, and general statements as accurate descriptions of their own personalities. A similar effect can occur when individuals evaluate whether or not an ambiguous profile describes a suspect accurately. Many profiles are so ambiguous that they can appear to describe any suspect.

A phenomenon related to the Barnum effect, it is concerned with changes in participants’ attitudes when taking part in Barnum experiments. Personality research suggests that faith in psychological assessment methods and perceptions of diagnosticians’ skills may increase as a result of exposure to ambiguous personality descriptions.

People often believe things, or do things a certain way, because they were believed or done that way by others. Police officers may believe CP is a valid investigative technique because they observe other police officers using it and accept messages promoting its effectiveness.

Social contagion research suggests that people will adopt others’ beliefs after observing behavior that appeared to work. Using CP and believing it works is likely contagious as well. Although it may be difficult to assess whether CP contagion exists, it is indisputable that there has been a steady rise, with intermit-tent dramatic increases, in CP use.

People are particularly attracted to phenomena that appeal to fantasy by focusing on the powers that ordinary people lack but desire. People are susceptible to adopting beliefs about real world events that are entirely based on fictional accounts. Because people are often intrigued by the criminal mind, CP (criminal profiling) activities tend to generate considerable public fascination. This observation is evidenced by the number of books, films, and television programs that deal with CP as well as the recent growth in college and university courses that address CP issues.

Seemingly factual statement crouched in a way that leaves plenty of scope to be developed into something more specific.

Data on the characteristics of criminals who commit certain crimes that are readily available to anyone.

Placing particular trust in people who describe themselves as “experts”.

Offenders are classified into broad personality types, and behaviour is attributed to underlying, relatively context-free dispositional constructs within the offender. Relies heavily on homology assumption.

Relates to the general rather than the individual. Relies on the study of groups of offenders to predict what characteristics may be typically inferred.

Focuses on the facts of the individual case and the features of the specific crime and offender.