UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGY AND CRIME Perspectives on Theory and Action An exceptional book that comprehensively covers the interface between psychology and criminology…written in an engaging and accessible manner, nicely linking key themes in order to situate the contribution of psychology to theories of criminal behaviour, strategies for informed practice, and contemporary challenges…I cannot recommend this text more heartily. Dr Ralph Serin, Carleton University, Canada James McGuire is one of the leading international experts on what works in reducing reoffending, and he has written an extremely valuable and accessible textbook a clearly written, well-researched and up-to-date survey of important contributions of psychology to key criminological issues. It is especially noteworthy for its illuminating reviews of cognitive–social learning theories, risk factors and longitudinal studies, risk assessment, cognitive– behavioural programmes and meta-analyses of treatment effectiveness. Professor David Farrington, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge • What contributions can psychology make to our understanding of crime? • How can psychological models and research help to prevent crime and reduce repeat offending? This highly readable book discusses the complex relationships between psychology, criminology and criminal justice. Challenging the assumptions of those who object to the use of psychology within criminology, this book shows how a methodical approach to the study of criminal behaviour can generate both systematic findings and practical solutions to problems. McGuire argues for a broader understanding of crime, based on factors such as the individual’s cognitive and emotional development, in addition to the influences of socialization, peer groups, and the social and economic environment. He highlights the value of understanding ‘pathways’ to offending behaviour, and the critical points at which choices are made. Topics include: • Theoretical and empirical research foundations of ‘criminogenic risk factors’ • Theory turned into practice – the development of offending behaviour programmes • A psychological perspective on some core concepts in criminology: retribution, deterrence and incapacitation • Major practical applications of psychology in policing, prosecution and sentencing This authoritative and stimulating text is essential reading for students in criminology and psychology, and for criminal justice practitioners and policy makers. James McGuire is Professor of Forensic Clinical Psychology at the University of Liverpool, UK. His previous publications include Offender Rehabilitation and Treatment: Effective Programmes and Policies to Reduce Reoffending (2002) and Behaviour, Crime and Legal Processes: A Guide for Forensic Practitioners (2000). Cover illustration: Linda Combi Cover design: Barker/Hilsdon 9 780335 211197 ISBN 0-335-21119-4 www.openup.co.uk James McGuire Understanding psychology and crime McGuire Series editor: Mike Maguire Understanding psychology and crime Perspectives on theory and action Understanding psycho-crime pb 8/3/04 4:45 PM Page 1 Understanding psychology and crime Perspectives on theory and action CRIME AND JUSTICE Series editor: Mike Maguire Cardiff University Crime and Justice is a series of short introductory texts on central topics in criminology. The books in this series are written for students by internationally renowned authors. Each book tackles a key area within criminology, providing a concise and up-to-date overview of the principal concepts, theories, methods and findings relating to the area. Taken as a whole, the Crime and Justice series will cover all the core components of an undergraduate criminology course. Published titles Understanding criminology 2nd edition Sandra Walklate Understanding justice 2nd edition Barbara A. Hudson Understanding social control Martin Innes Understanding risk in criminal justice Hazel Kemshall Understanding youth and crime Sheila Brown Understanding crime data Clive Coleman and Jenny Moynihan Understanding white collar crime Hazel Croall Understanding crime prevention Gordon Hughes Understanding violent crime Stephen Jones Understanding community penalties Peter Raynor and Maurice Vanstone Understanding psychology and crime James McGuire Understanding psychology and crime Perspectives on theory and action James McGuire Open University Press Open University Press McGraw-Hill Education McGraw-Hill House Shoppenhangers Road Maidenhead Berkshire England SL6 2QL email: enquiries@openup.co.uk world wide web: www.openup.co.uk and Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2289, USA First published 2004 Copyright © James McGuire 2004 All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Details of such licences (for reprographic reproduction) may be obtained from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd of 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T 4LP. A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 335 21119 4 (pb) 0 335 21120 8 (hb) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data CIP data has been applied for Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in the UK by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow Contents Series editor’s foreword ix Preface xiii 1 Why psychology? 1 Defining crime 3 Ordinary crime 5 Criminology: the case of the missing person 7 The scientific approach 9 The assumed philosophical basis of psychology 10 Positivism 10 Individualism 12 Biologism 14 Determinism 15 Reductionism 17 Psychology’s task 18 Historical roots 19 The structure of psychology 21 The relation of psychology to law 23 Further reading 25 2 Accounting for crime 27 Main concepts in criminological theory 28 Levels of description 30 Level 1: macro-level accounts 31 Level 2: locality-based accounts 33 Level 3: socialization and group influence processes 34 Level 4: crime events and ‘routine activities’ 35 Level 5: individual factors 35 Psychological processes in sociological models 38 Theory integration 41 Integrative developmental models 42 Evolutionary frameworks 45 Origins of (cognitive) social learning theory 48 The study of cognitive development 50 The cognitive–social learning synthesis 52 Further reading 53 3 Psychological processes in crime 55 Basic processes 56 Theory ‘from the ground up’ 58 Interrelationships of thoughts, feelings and behaviour 59 Information processing 60 Interactionism 62 ‘Ordinary’ behaviour 65 Everyday habits and routines 66 Self-regulation: functional and dysfunctional 68 The example of anger 69 Psychological processes and individual differences 71 Further reading 73 4 Pathways to offending behaviour 75 Property offences 76 Interpersonal contexts of property offending 78 Moods, cognitions and crime 81 Personal violence 82 Family interactions 85 Situational factors and social signals 88 Cognition and violence 89 Substance use and social learning 92 Sexual offending 96 Further reading 100 5 Individual factors in crime 101 Longitudinal studies 107 Developmental pathways 108 Synthesizing research findings 112 Discovering risk factors through meta-analysis 113 Identifying risk factors through evaluation of outcomes 115 Specific risk factors? 118 Two patterns of offending? 120 Offenders with mental disorders 122 Problems of definition 122 Mental health problems in offenders 123 Mental disorder and risk of offending 124 Personality disorder 126 Individual differences: practical implications 127 Risk assessment 128 vi Understanding psychology and crime Risk assessment and mental disorder 130 The context of risk assessment 131 A framework for crime prevention 132 Further reading 133 6 Preventing and reducing crime 134 Background to the debate 135 Discovering ‘what works’ through meta-analysis 136 Main features of the reviews 138 Ground covered 139 Limitations of the reviews 144 General impact 145 Patterns in effect sizes 147 Factors contributing to effectiveness 148 First the down side 148 Structured programmes 150 Features of ‘likely to succeed’ services 151 Methods of working 154 Young offenders 154 Adults 159 Driving offences 160 Property offences 161 Substance abuse 162 Violent offences 163 Sexual offences 166 Treatment approaches for offenders with mental disorders 167 Further reading 170 7 Crime and punishment: a psychological view 171 Key concepts in sentencing and punishment 173 Retribution 173 Incapacitation 174 Deterrence 174 Evidence for deterrence effects 176 The impact of sentencing 177 Imprisonment and crime rates 179 Enhanced punishments 180 Meta-analytic reviews 182 Deterrence on (controlled) trial 182 Self-report surveys 184 The death penalty 185 The failure of punishment 186 Strategies and methods of behaviour change 187 Behavioural analysis of punishment 187 Cognitive factors 189 Deterrence effects 193 Contents vii Ineffective – but indispensable? 196 Further reading 197 8 Applications and values 199 Psychology and the criminal justice process 200 Police investigation 200 Gathering evidence: the testimony of witnesses 201 The sentence of the court 202 Implementation: organizational and social contexts 204 Costs and benefits of interventions 204 Integrating psychology and law: therapeutic jurisprudence 205 Professional organizations 207 Psychology and crime: the social context 208 Individual and community 209 Ethical dilemmas: risk assessment, prediction and change 210 Professional codes of ethics 212 Augmenting models: risk factors and good lives 212 Desistance: the whole person 213 Psychology, science and politics 214 Polemics of criminal justice 215 Psychology and the sociology of science 216 Further reading 218 Glossary 219 References 226 Subject index 265 Name index 273 viii Understanding psychology and crime Series editor’s foreword James McGuire’s book is the eleventh in the successful Crime and Justice series published by Open University Press. The series is now established as a key resource in universities teaching criminology or criminal justice, especially in the UK but increasingly also overseas. The aim from the outset has been to give undergraduates and graduates both a solid grounding in the relevant area and a taste to explore it further. Although aimed primarily at students new to the field, and written as far as possible in plain language, the books are not oversimplified. On the contrary, the authors set out to ‘stretch’ readers and to encourage them to approach criminological knowledge and theory in a critical and questioning frame of mind. James McGuire has been a leading figure in the ‘What Works’ debates that have been increasingly prominent in the criminal justice arena over the last ten years, especially in relation to the development of cognitive- behavioural programmes, which aim to encourage and assist offenders on probation or in prison to understand and address their offending behaviour. Naturally, he covers these issues in this book in considerable depth, but his aims here are much broader. In essence, he sets out to assess the contribution that psychology can make, and has made, to knowledge and practice in the fields of criminology and criminal justice. As he points out, there has been something of a ‘divorce’ between psychologists and criminologists since the 1970s, when sociological approaches began to dominate academic criminology (in Britain, at least) and psychological approaches were criticized, as part of a major attack on ‘positivism’, for excessive focus on individual pathology at the expense of attention to broader structural forces in society. However, as McGuire shows, ‘psychology’ is an infinitely richer and more complex subject than has been portrayed in many of the cruder attacks on its relevance to the study of crime, and psychologists adopt a wide variety of theoretical approaches which should be of core interest to criminologists. Moreover, psychology has been making a serious [...]... the Crime and Justice series – all of whose titles begin with the word Understanding – have covered criminological theory (Sandra Walklate), penal theory (Barbara Hudson), crime data and statistics (Clive Coleman and Jenny Moynihan), youth and crime (Sheila Brown), crime prevention (Gordon Hughes), violent crime (Stephen Jones), community penalties (Peter Raynor and Maurice Vanstone), white collar crime. .. Croall), risk and crime (Hazel Kemshall) and social control (Martin Innes) Two are already in second editions and other second editions are planned Other new books in the pipeline include texts on prisons, policing, criminological research methods, sentencing and Series editor’s foreword xi criminal justice, drugs and crime, race and crime, and crime and social exclusion All are major topics in university. ..x Understanding psychology and crime ‘comeback’ in the criminal policy and practice arenas, not just in the ‘What Works’ developments in prisons and probation, but through major contributions in policing (especially serious crime investigation), criminal evidence to courts, risk assessment, and early interventions with children and families As a result, many more opportunities are opening up... result in long-term physical and emotional damage Serious or repeated victimization can cause significant, profound and enduring distress in people’s lives Whatever our definitions of crime, and however much academic debate there may be in relation to them, such events happen Such reactions to them are not uncommon That fallacies like the ones described by Felson (2002) persist, and that the fear of crime. .. delinquency and crime (Gold 1987: 67; for a fuller discussion, see Joseph 2003) Determinism The connections between positivism, individualism and biologism may appear inescapable, as if adoption of one led ineluctably to endorsement of the others A fourth reason for aversion to psychological accounts of crime arises from psychology s supposed reliance on mechanical, deterministic models of human action Given... (p 91) To suggest that reductionism consists of the view that 18 Understanding psychology and crime complex phenomena are merely the product of their more rudimentary units is to ignore the point that such explanations are concerned not only with the components that make up a higher-level structure, but also with understanding their interrelations But in addition, the notion of an explanatory chain relating... wishes met through such channels If the only ‘sport’ around is driving a car at high speed, the only cars around belong to other people, and your only friends have found an obvious solution to this, car theft and ‘joyriding’ will be the likely result Contemporary theories of personality within psychology are based on a recognition that both personality and situational factors are crucial in influencing... acknowledge from the outset that criminology and psychology have not always had an easy relationship (Hollin 2002a) The pivotal reason for this probably resides in psychologists’ perceived over-emphasis on the individual, while many criminologists think of crime 2 Understanding psychology and crime as something that can only be understood in terms of social conditions and society-wide trends But there are... or guilt for crimes to persons; and while the basis for that may be questioned, there appears little immediate prospect of it being changed in any meaningful way Even where crimes are committed by corporations or other collective entities, individual decisions are still intimately involved in the process In a xiv Understanding psychology and crime discussion some years after the one mentioned above,... Don Andrews, Ron Blackburn, Meg Blumsom, Meredith Brown, David Cooke, David Farrington, Paul Gendreau, Clive Hollin, Doug Lipton, Caroline Logan, Friedrich Lösel, Mary McMurran, Frank Porporino, Beverley Rowson, David Thornton and Sheila Vellacott None of them of course bears blame for any remaining errors or deficiencies James McGuire March 2004 chapter one Why psychology? Defining crime Ordinary crime . Maguire Understanding psychology and crime Perspectives on theory and action Understanding psycho -crime pb 8/3/04 4:45 PM Page 1 Understanding psychology and crime Perspectives on theory and action CRIME AND JUSTICE Series. Hughes Understanding violent crime Stephen Jones Understanding community penalties Peter Raynor and Maurice Vanstone Understanding psychology and crime James McGuire Understanding psychology and crime Perspectives. sentencing and x Understanding psychology and crime criminal justice, drugs and crime, race and crime, and crime and social exclusion. All are major topics in university degree courses on crime and criminal