CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY BPS309

Learn to Understand the Criminal Mind

When you work in law prevention, enforcement or security; it helps a lot to understand the criminal mind.

Profiling - when a crime has been committed a criminal psychologist may be called in to act as a criminal profiler. Many of us have an idea of what a profiler does through TV, cinema and crime novels. Criminal profiling involves a psychologist using his/her understanding of human behaviour, pathology and motivation to try to create a psychological profile of the offender. Profiles can be very accurate. The profiler can use information from the scene of the crime to infer behavioural characteristics of the person who committed the crime. The profiler will also use their knowledge of the "typical offender" who commits this sort of crime and predict how the offender is likely to behave in the future and what their physical appearance may be. Profiling can be very exciting, but there are not a lot of serial offenders around fortunately, so there are limited job prospects and training prospects. Once an offender has been apprehended, there are more opportunities for psychological intervention. It has been used in investigative police work, interrogation and police line up.

Develop your understanding of criminal psychology and how psychology is used in law enforcement and crime prevention.

INTERESTED IN LEARNING ABOUT THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRIME, THIS IS THE COURSE FOR YOU!

Suitable for anyone who works within criminal justice, such as police, social workers, court workers, solicitors, lawyers, probation workers or anyone with an interest in the psychology of crime.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN LEARNING ABOUT THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRIME, THIS IS THE COURSE FOR YOU!

Suitable for anyone who works within criminal justice, such as police, social workers, court workers, solicitors, lawyers, probation workers or anyone with an interest in the psychology of crime.

COURSE CONTENTS

There are ten (10) lessons consisting of:

Introduction to Criminal Psychology
Psychological approaches to understanding crime
Psychology and understanding serious crimes
Mental disorder and crime 1 – Learning disabilities and crime
Mental Disorder and Crime 2 - Psychopathy
Gender and Crime
Youth and Crime
Psychology and the Police
Psychology in the Courtroom
Psychology and Crime Prevention

Course Duration: 100 hours

Aim

Develop your understanding of criminal psychology and how psychology is used in law enforcement and crime prevention.

With the course, you will:

define crime and criminal psychology.
discuss psychological theories and approaches to understanding crime.
define serious crimes and explain the involvement of psychology.
discuss the relationship between a person having a learning disability and committing crime.
define psychopathy and discuss psychological theories relating to psychopathy.
discuss gender differences associated with crime.
discuss the psychological theories relating to youth and crime.
discuss how psychology is used by the police.
discuss how psychology is used in the court room.
discuss the use of psychology in crime prevention.

EXAMPLE ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS

Why is crime thought to be socially constructed?
Define reconstructive memory.
What are the differences in offending between male and female young people?
What factors are thought to influence whether a young person becomes an offender?
Define a young offender.

Opportunities

Graduates of this course may find employment across a wide range of jobs.
Understanding criminal psychology can help anyone from the legal secretary to security guard; or the social worker dealing with criminal rehabilitation to the small businessman selling and installing security equipment.

Some may use this as a first step toward becoming a criminal psychologist; but that is not where most of the jobs are in which criminal psychology is applied. For those who develop a particular interest and flair for this area of study though; this course, may well be an excellent first step toward an eventual career as a criminal psychologist.

What is a criminal psychologist?

Criminal psychologists may be known by a variety of names –

Criminal psychologist
Forensic psychologist
Investigative psychologist
Profiler
Criminologist

In this course we will use the term criminal psychologist. A criminal psychologist deals with the psychologist aspects of the legal processes. This includes –

Understanding the psychological problems associated with criminal behaviour.
Treatment of criminals.
Applying theory to criminal investigations.

What do Criminal Psychologists do?

Criminal psychologists will cover a range of roles, such as –

Research evidence to support practice
Implementing treatment programmes
Modifying offender behaviour
Advising parole boards
Responding to changing needs of prisoners and staff
Stress management techniques for staff and prisoners
Statistical analysis used for prisoner profiling.
Crime analysis
Mental health tribunals.

In psychology, there are three theories that are the most widespread approaches to defining crime. There are other approaches, but as these are the most widely accepted, we will consider those here.

The Consensus View

This view stems from the sociological theories of J Shepherd (1981). This school of thought holds that society functions as an integrated structure, the stability of which is dependent on consensus or agreement by its members, so that the rules, values and norms are respected by all. Therefore, the legal system of the society is a reflection of what is considered tolerable and intolerable behaviour within that particular society i.e. intolerable behaviour is disapproved of by the majority.

Before a crime can be said to have occurred, it has to be committed. So without an action, there can be no crime.

The Conflict View

The Conflict View is the direct opposite of the Consensus View.

The Interactionist View

The Interactionist View falls between the Consensus and Conflict View. It began as a field of thought within sociology called symbolic interactionism.

Learn more about these theories and a lot more through this course!