Forensic Psychology For Dummies (79 page)

So new types of criminals are turning to illegal activities and existing criminals are finding their opportunities in different ways. Experts – including forensic psychologists – therefore need to consider whether existing approaches to crime prevention are still relevant or whether the different psychology of today’s criminals requires a different set of approaches. For instance, the psychology of the previously mentioned Internet-based thief is going to be quite different to someone prepared to rob a person physically, and so preventing that crime requires a different approach.

Each of the developments in Table 8-1 raises new challenges as to how to prevent or reduce the criminal opportunities and activities. Of course, authorities and citizens still need to make life as hard as possible for potential criminals (the so-called target-hardening that I discuss in the later section ‘Making crime more difficult’), but much of this attempted prevention is going to be in cyberspace instead of on the high street.

Despite the changing nature of crime, being alert to the psychological characteristics of offenders and their attitudes to what they’re doing (in order to discern their weaknesses) remains central to crime prevention strategies (check out the later section ‘Examining Ways to Prevent (or at Least Combat) Crime’).

As well as the changes I list in Table 8-1, authorities also need to consider widespread social changes that present new types of criminal behaviour (see Table 8-2).

Table 8-2 Social Changes Relevant to Understanding Criminals

In many senses, criminals don’t change themselves, just their methods (see the nearby sidebar ‘Pushing to increase the crime rate’). People who conned vulnerable members of the public 100 years ago – say by selling snake oil as a panacea – now have websites selling equally useless products. Stalkers who used to confront estranged lovers physically or bombard them with endless letters, today threaten via the Internet with streams of e-mails or abuse on Facebook. Perhaps the modern-day equivalent of the boy pickpockets that Charles Dickens portrays in
Oliver Twist
now work at computer terminals stealing through fake websites and fraudulent e-mails.

Asking whether prison works

If authorities believe that some people are inherently criminal, these people have to be discouraged from their errant ways, which can be very difficult in a free society. Often they’re imprisoned, which worldwide is a common process for trying to prevent crime.

Clearly, this approach reduces the possibility of people committing crimes for the period that they’re in prison – at least on the streets – although they can influence crimes indirectly and of course offend within the prison. But beyond the short-term objective of taking offenders out of circulation, does prison reduce the risk of them re-offending after they’re let out?

Although the recidivism figures paint a pessimistic picture of imprisonment – with around two out of every three people re-offending within three years – the prison experience does change some offenders’ behaviour permanently.

Viewing prison as just one type of experience, however, is perhaps misleading, because they vary enormously. Some prisons are the boring, violence-ridden places, full of aggressive gangs and drugs, that so delight Hollywood, but many others provide training and support activities that enable people to reconstruct their views of themselves and their lives. These approaches can help offenders back into society, provided that the stigma of imprisonment can be overcome.

Around the world, many other attempts at punishment that can also rehabilitate are in use. Such procedures as electronic tagging, community service orders and various forms of open imprisonment have had mixed success. These approaches seek to reduce the negative effects associated with incarceration, while making clear to individuals that their offending is both unacceptable and unproductive. The challenge is to help offenders deal with the causes of their crimes (perhaps rooted in the social networks and/or their personality characteristics), while simultaneously meting out appropriate punishment, which is an extremely tall order.

Getting tough on the causes of crime

If those in power believe that social settings and upbringing are predominantly responsible for crime, it follows that some possibility of rehabilitation exists and so treatment and support projects may be worthwhile (as I consider in Part V). In this case, authorities are likely to support programmes that help people to be better parents or that try to move children out of the conditions of poverty that foster crime.

As I explore in Chapter 7, many offenders who commit violent crimes have been victims of physical or sexual abuse in the past. Consequently, any reduction in those initial crimes, and efforts to help those who suffer from them, is likely to reduce the number of people in subsequent generations who carry out similar offences.

This last point indicates one of the difficulties in dealing with the causes of crime, however, which is that any positive effects can take decades to appear. In addition, such social programmes are very expensive to put in place and run, and the results are often subjective and hard to prove (at a time when displaying value-for-money public expenditure is crucial).

One area that’s often undervalued in reducing crime is education. Many people drift into criminal activity because they haven’t received the knowledge and skills from schooling to enable them to find a productive place in society. The reality is that many people in prison have very low levels of educational achievement, often being unable to read or write effectively.