PSYC39 – LECTURE NOTES

LECTURE 1 ~ Introduction
 What is Forensic Psychology?
 A field of psychology that deals with all aspects of human behaviour as it relates
to the law or legal system
 Police psychology and the psychology of police investigations, juries,
mental illness and the law, psychopaths, etc.

LECTURE 2 ~ Introduction to Forensic Psychology & Police Psychology

 Psychology Basics
 Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour, emotions, and cognition
 Why are psychologists scientists? Because psychology uses the scientific
method
 Scientific method – entails objective observation, measurements, hypotheses,
statistics/data analyses to test and refine hypotheses, etc.
 Psychology uses empirical methods which makes it a science
 Some people typically think of psychology as the study of people’s thoughts,
feelings, and behaviour but psychology is much broader than this
 i.e. Some psychologists study songbird cognition
 Forensic Psychology Basics
 Forensic psychology: a field of psychology that deals with all aspects of human
behaviour (including thinking, feeling, etc.) as it relates to the law/legal system
 Working definition
 No consensus among experts
 Multiple terms are used: Legal Psychology or Criminological Psychology
 Narrow definition – individuals engaged in clinical practice (i.e. assessing,
treating, or consulting) within the legal system
 Broader definition – Bartol and Bartol (2013) (research + practice)
 Psychological research related to legal processes
 Professional practice of psychology within or in consultation with legal
systems
 A Brief History of Forensic Psychology
 The origins of forensic psychology are as old as psychology itself
 James Cattell (1860 – 1944), the first professor of psychology in the US
 Completed his PhD in 1886 under the supervision of Wilhelm Wundt in
Germany (Wundt did research on psychophysics, perception, etc.)
 Early research on “eyewitness testimony” (1895)
 Asked university students to recall things they had witnessed in their daily
lives
 Found that student answers were inaccurate
 Students’ degree of confidence and recall accuracy was weak
 Cattell believed these findings could be useful in “courts of justice”
 Hugo Munsterberg (1863-1916) – The Father of Forensic Psychology
 Completed PhD in 1885 under Wundt
 On the Witness Stand (1908) Book
  Argued that psychology could assist the legal system: eyewitness
testimony, false confessions, crime prevention
 Was ridiculed by legal scholars
 Fictional story in which he was tried by the “Supreme Court of Wundt
County” and found guilty of “claiming more than he could offer”
 Making fun of Wundt’s lab basically
 In the wake of Munsterberg’s work, forensic psychology began to develop
 i.e. Psychologists played an important role in the opening of the first clinic
for juvenile delinquents in 1909
 i.e. By 1917, developed psychological tests for law enforcement selection
purposes
 Theories of Crime
 Biological, Sociological, Psychological theories
 Biological Theories
 Constitutional theory: one’s temperament (reflected by body type) increases his
or her likelihood of committing crime
 Sheldon’s (1949) theory
 Temperament = personality traits
 3 basic temperaments related to 3 body types
 Ectomorphic (thin; shy), ectomorph (fat; jolly), mesomorphic (muscular;
aggressive and more likely to commit crime)
 Chromosomal theory: chromosomal irregularity is linked to criminal behaviour
 Jacob’s et al (1965) theory
 Typical females are XX; typical males are XY
 Chromosomally atypical males with XYY (1 in 1000 male births)  it
was proposed that the extra Y chromosome makes males more masculine
 Jacob’s et al. reasoned that they would be more aggressive and prone to
violent crime (“Violent super male”)
 In fact, XYYs
 Do perform more antisocial and criminal behaviours
 Are overrepresented in prison populations
 But they also have lower IQs, lower income and education, and fewer
social supports
 Sociological Theories
 Strain theory: some low SES people use crime to compete for status
 Merton’s (1938) theory
 Differential association theory: people are more likely to get involved in crime
when they learn values that are favorable to violations of law
 Sutherland’s (1939) theory
 People modelling crime to them, similar to Aker’s theory
 Psychological Theories
 Biosocial theory of crime: people high in extraversion and neuroticism don’t
easily learn from the consequences of their behaviour
 Aren’t sufficiently socialized and develop antisocial inclinations
 Eysenck’s (1964) theory
  Social learning theory: crime is learned, role models and the expectations of
rewards from crime leads to antisocial behaviour
 Aker’s (1973) theory
 The Roles of a Forensic Psychologist
 Clinician: assessment and treatment of mental health issues as they pertain to the
legal system
 Scientist: experimenter or researcher; psychology as it relates to the legal system
 Legal scholar: interdisciplinary training in both psychology and the law
 The Forensic Psychologist as Clinician
 What do they do?
 Conducting divorce and child custody mediation
 Providing expert testimony on questions of a psychological nature
 Personnel selection (i.e. for the police)
 Treatment programs for offenders
 Educational requirements
 Must hold a PhD in psychology (ON, BC, QBC, PEI), Master’s degree is
sufficient in other provinces
 Supervised practice in forensic setting
 Forensic Psychiatrists are medical doctors who work in forensic settings
 Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter is a Forensic Psychiatrist
 The Forensic Psychologist as Researcher
 What do they do?
 Examining the effectiveness of risk-assessment strategies
 Determining what factors influence jury decision making
 Evaluating programs (i.e. victim treatment)
 Studying stress management interventions among police officers
 Educational requirements
 Must hold a PhD in Psychology
 Research focused on forensic psychology
 No supervised practice, but may pursue postdoctoral training (learning
additional methods, basically doing more research)
 Expert Witness/Expert Testimony
 A witness who provides the court with information that assists the court in
understanding an issue of relevance to a case
 Non-expert witnesses testify about what they have directly observed
 Providing expert testimony is hard!
 You have to be an expert in your field
 You have to know legal procedures
 You have to be an effective communicator (persuasive and helpful)
 Differences between Psychology and Law
 Epistemology
 Psychology – objective truth
 Law – subjective, most convincing story
 Nature of Law
 Psychology – descriptive, why do people behave the way they do?
 Law – prescriptive, people should behave this way
  Knowledge
 Psychology – knowledge is nomothetic or “general laws”
 Law – knowledge is idiographic (case specific) analyses and reasoning
 Methodology
 Psychology – nomothetic, scientific method
 Law – case-by-case basis, develop compelling stories that cover details of
a specific case
 Criterion
 Psychology – statistical (i.e. hypothesis testing, p<0.05)
 Law – prescriptive, “beyond reasonable doubt”
 Principles
 Psychology – consider multiple, even competing explanations; explore
 Law – stick to available facts
 Latitude of courtroom behaviour
 Psychology – expert witness, strict protocol
 Lawyer – more options
 Criteria for Accepting Expert Testimony
 In the US, scientific evidence must meet the Daubert Criteria to be admitted into
court:
1. The research has been peer reviewed
2. The research is testable (i.e. falsifiable)
3. The research has a recognized rate of error (scientific evidence always has
some margin of error, and this needs to be acknowledged)
4. The research adheres to professional standards
 In Canada, scientific evidence must meet the Mohan Criteria to be admitted into
court:
1. The evidence must be relevant
2. The evidence must be necessary for assisting the trier of fact (the evidence
has to add some expert knowledge that the court wouldn’t otherwise have)
3. The evidence must not violate exclusionary rules (i.e. cannot cause
prejudice jurors)
4. The evidence must be provided by a qualified expert
 Read box 1.5: Applying the Mohan Criteria is difficult
 Expert Testimony: Hollywood Example
 Real lawyer reacts to the “Exorcism of Emily Rose”
 Movie about a girl (Emily Rose) who is sick and has a psychological disorder
 She didn’t get the recommended medical help
 The priest who oversaw her exorcism is put on trial after Emily dies
 Police Psychology
 Police selection: procedures to screen out undesirable candidates and select
desirable ones
 Police discretion: latitude that officers have when making decisions
 Police stress: occupational stress and organizational stress
 Police Selection
 Psychology applied to selection procedures is, again, almost as old as psychology
itself
  Lewis Terman (1917) used the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test to assist
with police selection in California
 In France, Alfred Binet published the first intelligence test in 1905 (test
was developed for the government to identify kids who need extra help)
 The goal of selection procedures is to select the best candidates
 Who will perform the job well?
 Police Agency Selection Procedures in the US


 Cognitive ability = intelligence tests
 Cochrane et al. (2003) – data represent responses from 155 US police agencies
 Developing Police Selection Instruments
 Step 1: Conduct a Job Analysis
 Identify the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities that make a good
police officer
 KSAs = knowledge, skills, abilities
 Not easy – KSAs depend on type of work (i.e. KSAs of the ideal
constable/officer vs ideal manager)
 But there’s consensus: honesty, reliability, sensitivity to others,
communication skills, motivation, problem-solving skills, team player
 The RCMP uses the Six Factor Personality Test (emphasis on
conscientiousness)
 Step 2: Constructing and Validating Instruments
 Do scores on the test predict performance outcomes?
 i.e. Do scores on the Six Factor Personality Test predict supervisor ratings
of performance, number of promotions, absenteeism?
 Predictive validity: often measured with correlation coefficients, which quantify
how 2 variables are associated with each other (assumes a linear relationship)
 What do correlations look like?
 A standardized (i.e. -1 < r < +1) index of the degree of association between two
variables
 The largest correlations?
 Estimates of reliability (.70 < r < .90)
 Correlating the same measure with itself
 i.e. Weighing yourself on the same bathroom scale twice
 Examples of Real Correlations Between Different Variables


  Important to use comparisons (i.e. smokers compared to non-smokers)
 Small correlations can still be meaningful (i.e. r=0.02 still translates into 85 fewer
heart attacks)
 Meyer et al.’s (2001) Conclusions
 The modal effect size (the mode) is between .10 and .30 for psychology as a
whole (including experimental investigations)
 Most correlations in psychology are within this range
 Effect sizes in psychology are comparable to, and often larger than those found in
medicine
 Hemphill (2003)


 Hemphill sorted Meyer’s correlations to create new guidelines
 More realistic guide to interpret effect sizes (i.e. >0.30 is a larger effect
size)
 Cohen’s (1988, 1992) “rules of thumb” are out of date!
 Small: .10 < r < .30
 Medium: .30 < r < .50
 Large: .50 <r < 1.00
 The Predictive Validity of Police Selection Instruments
 Selection Interviews (semi-structured)
 Semi-structured (set list of questions for all applicants, but they can
answer in their own way such as conversationally)
 Assess whether applicant has KSAs for the job
 Not a whole lot of research supporting their validity
 i.e. Annell et al. (2015) found only partial support for predictive validity:
of 36 correlation coefficients, only 5 were significant, largest was r=0.10
 But, these recruits already had 2 years of academic training, 6 months of
field training, and had already passed other assessment hurdles
 Basically people without KSAs had already been weeded out by the time
these interviews were done (restricted range)
 Psychological Tests
 Cognitive ability (intelligence) tests are commonplace
 i.e. RCMP uses the RCMP Police Aptitude Test  composition,
comprehension, memory, judgement, observation, logic, computation
 Hirsh et al. (1986) meta-analysis of 40 studies (meta-analysis is a “fancy avg”)
 r=.36, training success
 r=.13, on-the-job performance
 Aamodt (2004), more recent meta-analysis
 r=.41, academy performance
 r=.16 supervisor ratings of on-the-job performance
  Assessment Centres (people going in and doing physical simulation tests)
 Sophisticated facilities in which the behaviour of applicants can be
observed by multiple raters
 Situation test! Approximate real-world policing in simulated environments
 Some evidence in support of validity
 Pynes and Bernardin (1992) found
 r=.14 for training academy performance
 r=.20 for on-the-job performance
 Police Discretion
 The freedom that officers have for deciding what should be done in a given
situation
 What street should I patrol?
 Should I stop that vehicle for a traffic violation?
 What level of force is required to achieve my objective?
 Should I call an end to this investigation?
 Discretion is necessary because the job is too complicated and resources are
scarce
 Sheehan and Cordner (1989)
 Enforcing all the laws all the time would force police to be at the station and in
court all the time, not on the streets where they’re needed
 i.e. Minor infractions like going 2km/hr above the speed limit
 Enforcing all the laws all the time would overwhelm the justice system
 There’s limited resources
 Politicians pass some laws that aren’t intended to be strictly enforced
 Politicians pass laws that are purposely vague, allowing for discretion
 Discretion when dealing with individuals who have mental illness
 The deinstitutionalization of individuals with mental illness has increased the
likelihood that police officers will come into contact with mentally ill people
 Three options
 Transport the individual to a psychiatric institution or hospital
 Arrest and take to jail
 Resolve the manner informally (i.e. see that family steps in to help)
 Greyhound killer believed man he beheaded was an alien
 2008 Greyhound incident in Manitoba
 Vince Li stabbed passenger to death
 He told schizophrenia society CEO he believed he was the second coming
of Christ
 When RCMP officers arrived at the scene, they called for a negotiating team
 Vince Li started to cannibalize the body of the man he murdered
 Officers were criticized in the media and elsewhere for poor discretion
 Discretion in Use-of-Force Situations
 In some situations, officers need to use force to protect the public and themselves
 They can use varying degrees of force to suppress a situation
 Need to do their best to use the minimal amount that’s necessary
 When officers use excessive force, they themselves can be charged and
convicted of crime
 RCMP’s Incident Management/Intervention Model
 Promotes continuous risk assessment in constantly evolving situations (constant
consideration of situational factors)
 Situational factors
 Environmental conditions (lighting, location, hazards, etc.)
 Subject characteristics (i.e. number, abilities, state of mind, etc.)
 Tactical issues (number of subjects, abilities of subject, threats, etc.)


 Some Useful Definitions
 First-degree murder: a homicide that is both planned and deliberate
 i.e. Contract killings
 Automatic: life-sentence, no possibility of parole (early release) for 25
years
 Second-degree murder: a deliberate killing that is not planned
 i.e. X and Y are having a disagreement, things get out of hand, X
impulsively kills Y
 Minimum: life-sentence, no possibility of parole for 10 years
 Attempted murder
 Trying to cause the death of another person
 Maximum of life sentence, if firearm is used – 4, 5, or 7 years depending
on prior convictions (minimum)
 Manslaughter
 A homicide committed without intent, although there may have been
intent to cause harm
 No minimal sentence, except when committed with a firearm (minimum 4
years in prison)
 Toronto, July 13: The James Forcillo Case
 Sammy Yatin on a Toronto bus exposing himself and threating others with a knife
 Officers arrived – Officer Forcillo asked for a taser but one wasn’t available
 Shot Yatin 3 times, Yatin fell to the ground
 Forcillo shot another 6 rounds, claimed he saw Yatin start to “renew his
attack”
 Forcillo was charged, found guilty of attempted murder
 Fortunately, Police Use-of-Force is rare
 Canadian study by Hall and Votova (2013)
 Examined use-of-force across 7 municipal police agencies between Aug
2006 and March 2013
 3,594,812 public-police interactions
 Of these, 4,992 recorded use-of-force events (0.1% of all interactions)
 Physical strikes 59.6%
 Taser 14.9%
 Pepper spray 3.6%
  Canine 2.4%
 Police Stress
 Occupational stress
 Stressors relating to the job itself (i.e. facing danger)
 Organizing stress
 Stressors relating to organizational issues (i.e. problems with management,
pressure)
 Highest-Ranked Stressors for Police in Ontario
 The feeling that different rules apply to different people
 Feeling like you always have to prove yourself to the organization
 Dealing with the court system
 Shift work
 Perceived pressure to volunteer time
 Consequences of Police Stress
 Health problems
 Retired officers die younger than other city employees
 Officers more likely to die of cancer
 Psychological problems (i.e. PTSD)
 Job Performance Problems
 Different solutions to help officers manage stress are being used and investigated
for effectiveness

LECTURE 3 ~ The Psychology of Police Investigations

 Police Interrogations
 Police interview a suspect to gather evidence and/or obtain a confession
 In some countries, people can be convicted solely on the basis of a confession
 Not the case in Canada or the US
 Corroborating evidence is required
 Confessions are still very important
 In the past, physically coercive strategies were sometimes used (i.e. whipping)
 In the 70s and 80s, the City of Chicago paid out millions in settlements for
using physically coercive tactics
 Psychological Tactics
 Some interrogation experts endorse the use of psychological tactics because some
offenders are unwilling to cooperate
 Reid, Buckley, and Jayne (2013)
 We do approve of psychological tactics and techniques that may involve
deception
 They are not only helpful but frequently indispensable in order to secure
incriminating information from the guilty
 Or to obtain investigative leads from otherwise uncooperative witnesses
and informants
 The “Mr. Big” Technique (used in Canada)
 Undercover officer, posing as a criminal, lures suspect into confessing to a crime
(the one being investigated) under the pretense of giving Mr. Big (a new criminal
boss) “insurance”
  Basically an undercover officer pretends to be a crime “boss” and asks
potential new hires about their criminal history to see if they’re qualified –
tricks applicants into confessing into previous crimes
 95% conviction rate
 Are the confessions voluntary or coerced?
 This isn’t entrapment because the confession is for a previous crime, not
for any crimes that are committed during the undercover investigation
 Canadian courts typically considered this a “reasonable use of trickery”
 Entrapment: inducing someone to commit a crime they would not otherwise
commit
 Probative: affording proof or evidence
 R. vs. Hart (2014), Supreme Court: probative value > risk of prejudice
 “Any action that causes a confession to be coerced from a suspect may be
deemed unacceptable”
 This ruling will likely limit the use of the Mr. Big Technique
 The Reid Model of Interrogation (North America)
 Three Phases
 Phase 1: Gather evidence and interview witnesses and victims
 Phase 2: Non-accusatorial interview of suspect to assess evidence of
deception
 Phase 3: Accusatorial interview if they are suspected of guilt
 Basic Assumptions
 People make choices to maximize their well-being given the constraints
they face
 During the accusatory phase, suspect’s fear of confession outweighs their
anxiety about remaining deceptive
 Basically suspects are more scared of confessing than lying, this model
tries to reverse this and make them feel comfortable with confessing
 The goal is to reverse this calculus with psychological tactics
 Minimization techniques (“soft sell” tactics): lull suspect into false sense
of security (i.e. moral justification, safe-saving excuses)
 Maximization techniques (“hard sell” tactics): intimidate subject (i.e.
making accusations, interrupting denials)
 True Detective Season 1: Rust Cohle
 Master at extracting confessions – his special minimization tactic: offering
subjects a glimpse of redemption
 i.e. Getting a suspect in a robbery case to confess
 Interrogation of Charmaine Boudreaux
 Munchausen syndrome by proxy  person (usually female) intentionally
produces an illness in their child
 Sometimes motivated by wanting the attention of others
 Reid Model Steps
 Context – subject is isolated in a plainly decorated interrogation room, no
distractions, interrogator with folder in hand
 Step 1: Confront suspect with his/her guilt
 Imply evidence exists even if it doesn’t
  Step 2: Develop psychological themes to rationalize or excuse the crime
 i.e. “Let’s face it, the guy had it coming to him”
 Step 3: Interrupt any statement of denial – maintain upper hand
 Step 4: Overcome any objections to the charges
 Step 5: If the subject becomes withdrawn, regain his/her engagement
 Step 6: Express sympathy and understanding, appeal to the subject’s sense of
decency (doesn’t work on psychopaths)
 Step 7: offer explanations for the crime to make self-incrimination easier
 i.e. “Nobody’s saying killed him in cold blood, the argument went wrong”
 Step 8: Once suspect accepts responsibility, develop admission into full
confession
 Step 9: Get the suspect to write and sign full confession
 The Use of the Reid Model
 Kassin et al.’s (2007) self-report survey of police investigators (N=631)
 Isolating suspects and trying to establish rapport, commonly used
 Confronting suspects with guilt, less common
 Threatening suspects with consequences for not confession – rare
 King and Snook (2009) coded videotaped interrogations (N=44)
 Coercive strategies (less than 25%) not part of Reid model
 Confronting suspects with guilt (80%)
 Appeals to pride (60%)
 The number of Reid techniques used was positively associated with
extracted confessions (possible “third variable”  investigator effort)
 Potential Problems with Reid Model
 Deceptive Detection
 Decision to begin an interrogation depends on accurate assessment of
subject’s use of deception when claiming innocence
 Officers aren’t better than the average person at detecting deception
 Possible better approach – teach people how to increase behavioural
differences between truth-tellers and liars (but more work is needed)
 Investigator Bias (confirmation bias)
 When people have a pre-existing belief, they seek out and interpret new
information in a way that verifies their belief
 Kassin et al. (2003) experiment using student subjects – manipulated
interrogators belief of guilt and innocence
 Interrogators with guilty expectations asked more questions that implied
guilt, used more interrogation techniques, and behaved more coercively,
especially against innocent suspects who became more defensive
 False Confessions (Reid model can lead to false confessions)
 Interrogation Practices and the Courts
 Only when subjects knowingly and voluntarily waive their rights to silence and
legal counsel can their statements be used as evidence against them in court
 In both Canada and US
 Right to silence means right to not say anything
 Kassim (2015): many people don’t understand their rights when they are
presented to them and cannot therefore make an informed decision
  Eastwood and Snook (2010) found that undergrads (N=56) didn’t understand their
rights
 Canadians facing an investigative interview will not fully comprehend
their rights, and therefore are unable to make a fully informed decision
regarding whether or not they should waive their rights
 Young people, intellectually impaired
 PEACE Model as an Alternative
 Used by police agencies in England and Wales
 Goal was to reduce coercive interrogation practices
 “Investigative interviewing” rather than interrogation
 Emphasizes information gathering over securing confessions
 Acronym
 Planning and preparation
 Engage and explain
 Account
 Closure
 Evaluate
 Some evidence suggests that the PEACE model works as effectively as the Reid-
type techniques
 Meissner and Russano (2003) found that roughly 50% of subjects
confessed before and after the introduction of the PEACE model
 False Confessions
 Coercive interrogation tactics can increase the likelihood of false confessions,
confessions that are either
 Intentionally fabricated
 Not based on actual knowledge of the facts
 Frequency of false confessions are difficult to ascertain
 Self-reports among inmates 0.6% to 12%
 Kassin et al. (2012) examined false confessions among prisoners that were
exonerated by DNA evidence – of 241 cases, 24.48% contained a false
confession
 Retracted confessions: confessions that the confessor later declares false
 Disputed confessions: confessions that are later disputed at trial
 Types of False Confessions
 Voluntary false confession: falsely admitting to a crime, voluntarily, without police
elicitation
 Why? Gudjonsson (1992)
 Notoriety
 Unable to distinguish fact from fantasy
 Need to make up for pathological feelings of guilt
 Desire to protect someone from harm
 Lindbergh Baby
 In 1927, Charles Lindberg flew for the first solo transatlantic flight, from New
York to Paris
 In 1932, his son, Charles Lindberg Jr was kidnapped and murdered
 “Crime of the Century”
  Over 200 people falsely confessed
 Coerced-compliant false confessions: a false confession that results form
 A desire to escape a coercive interrogation environment
 Gain a benefit promised by the police
 Avoid a threatened punishment
 R. v. M.J.S. (2000) in Canada
 3-month old boy admitted to hospital for chest infections
 X-rays discovered rib fractures, pediatrician notified child welfare
 Expert testimony suggested child was shaken
 Police used Reid-tactics on the father (minimization tactics such as “I’m sure it
was an accident”) and various maximization tactics
 i.e. Denial met with “we’re beyond that point – we know you did it”
 i.e. If you confess “you’ll be able to say to yourself… I told the truth”
 i.e. “If you want your kids to be raised in a foster home…”
 Judge’s ruling in this case
 Judge decided that the confession was extracted by threats and promises
 Confession deemed inadmissible
 This case is a classic illustration of how slavish adherence to a technique can
produce a coerced-compliant false ‘apology’
 Even from the accused who has denied 34 times that he didn’t do anything
wrong when caring for his child
 Coerced-internalized false confession: results from suggestive interrogation techniques,
confessor actually believes they committed the crime
 Why? Gudjonsson (1992) more likely among people
 With a history of substance abuse or some other neurological issue
 Who are unable to discriminate what they observe and what is erroneously
suggested to them
 Who have severe anxiety, confusion, or feelings of guilt
 Rare
 Billy Wayne Cope
 41 year-old convicted for the rape and murder of his 12 year-old daughter
Amanda
 Cope woke up to find his daughter dead on her own bed, called 911
 Treated as a suspect because there was no evidence of forced-entry
 Lengthy interrogation, denied any involvement in the murder, waived his rights,
took a polygraph and was told he failed (he didn’t)
 Broke down and concluded that he must have done it – provided full
narrative of how he molested and strangled his daughter
 DNA tests: semen didn’t come from Cope
 Actually came from a serial sex murderer, but the police lied to his wife
(she died thinking it was Cope)
 Cope was charged with conspiracy, prosecutor argued that Cope pimped his
daughter to the sex offender
 Consequences of False Confessions
 Suspects get convicted for crimes they didn’t commit
 Jurors are influenced by confessions
  Kassin and Sukel (1997) found that the presence of confessions increases
conviction rate, even when jurors recognize high-pressure interrogation
situations and explicitly say it won’t influence their decision
 Convicting confessors is common sense – why would someone go against
their self-interest?
 Jurors can’t detect lies
 False confessions are similar to true confessions (articulate details)
 Confessions taint other evidence in the case, can skew interpretation of other
evidence
 Police diverted down a false path

LECTURE 4 ~ Eyewitness Testimony

 Criminal profilers try to guess the characteristics of the perpetrator
 The Unabomber was active in the 90s
 Sent bombs in the mail
 Unabomber would write letters  FBI used “forensic linguistics” to identify him
based on his speech
 The Zodiac Killer
 Active in the 70s and 80s
 He would write and send letters, taunting them
 History of Criminal Profiling
 Investigative technique for identifying the personality and behavioural
characteristics of an individual based on analyses of the crimes they commit
 Mostly used for cases involving violent serial crimes
 Repeat crimes (serial) that we believe are completed by the same offender
 Originally used to narrowing the list of suspects, but now serves additional
purposes
 Help set traps to flush an offender out
 Determine if threatening communications should be taken seriously
 Advise on how to interrogate subjects
 Advise how to break down defendants in cross-examination
 RCMP uses the term “criminal investigative analysis”
 1888 – mutilated women in East London
 Letters sent to newspapers, claimed responsibility for the murders (Jack
the Ripper)
 Police surgeon, Dr. George Phillips, believed wound patterns could
provide clues about the behaviour and personality of the offender
 1940 – a series of bombings in New York
 With no leads, the NYPD turned to forensic psychiatrist Dr. James Brussel
 Dr. Brussel hypothesized the offender was: middle-aged, suffering from
paranoia, pathologically self-centred, well-educated, unmarried, Roman
Catholic, and would dress in double-breasted suits
 In 1957, George Metesky was captured and matched Dr. Brussel’s profile
 The FBI and John Douglas
 FBI developed a criminal profiling program in the 1970s
 Behavioural Sciences Unit in 1972
  Now called the “Behavioural Research and Instruction Unit”
 Training and research for criminal profiling
 Similar units now exist around the world
 1976 – John Douglas began interviewing serial predators across the US
 Interviewed the most violent killers and rapists
 The goal was to develop a database that could be used to help law
enforcement
 “Inductive profiling method”
 Many of the killers would engage with John Douglas and he would have
long interviews speaking with them
 Sexual Homicide – Patterns and Motives, book summarizing John
Douglas’ interviews
 Methods of Criminal Profiling
 Description of the profiling process are generally vague
 Different schools of thought (different languages, theories, etc.)
 Use a variety of methods
 Deductive criminal profiling (“Sherlock Holmes”)
 Profile the background of an unknown offender based on evidence left at
the crime scene
 i.e. Offender had short fingernails on one hand, but long on the other 
the offender is a guitar player
 Downside: relies on logic  logical conclusions can be wrong
 Inductive criminal profiling (“John Douglas”)
 Profile the background of an unknown offender based on what we know
about other solved cases
 i.e. Aitken et al.’s (1996) statistical model of child murderers – 96%
chance offender knows the victim, 92% chance the offender has previous
convictions, 65% chance the offender was younger than 20
 Downside: crimes that don’t fit pre-existing profiles are difficulty
 Organized/Disorganized Model
 Formalized by John Douglas and his colleagues in the 1980s
 Offender’s crime scene can be classified as either organized or
disorganized


 Organized crimes are planned, disorganized crimes are spontaneous
 Crime scenes thought to reflect the background characteristics of the offender
 
 One of the problems with this model is that people can commit
disorganized crimes but have some organized characteristics & vise-versa
 Canter et al. (2004) Organized/Disorganized Serial Crimes: Model or Myth?
 Used a multidimensional scaling technique to test the hypothesis that crime
scene behaviours can be classified using organized/disorganized categories
 Behaviours closer together in statistical space tend to co-occur
 Behaviours in the center of the plot are observed more frequently
 If the organized/disorganized model is valid, then “organized” and “disorganized”
behaviours should clump together in different regions of the graph


 Elements that are closer together tend to co-occur, and elements in the
middle tend to occur more frequently
 We don’t see a clear divide between organized and disorganized aspects of
crime, instead what we see is that organized aspects occur more often
 All serial crimes are relatively organized
 Organization isn’t a key differentiator
 What distinguishes between serial killers are their forms of
disorganization
 Results contradict the organized/disorganized model
 The most frequent elements of crimes that occur are organized elements
(i.e. restraints, tampered evidence, etc.)
 The type of disorganization left at a crime scene is what differentiates
serial killers (i.e. leaving a weapon at the crime scene)
 The Validity of Criminal Profiling
 What do police officers say?
 Profiling is a valuable tool to help solve cases and help investigators
improve their understanding of cases
 Shouldn’t be used in court as evidence
 Shouldn’t be used for all types of crimes
 Has the potential to mislead an investigation (i.e. one of the goals of crime
is to narrow the list of suspects, but profiling could eliminate the true
criminal)
 Four Criticisms
  Criticism 1: profiling is based on an empirical model of personality that lacks
strong empirical support
 “Classic trait model”  Assumes that the primary determinants of
behaviour are stable, internal traits, ignores situational factors
 This is only partially true, profiling relies on personality traits but no
personality psychologist ignores situational factors (the textbook is wrong)
 “This is wrong, this is a strawman”
 The Person-Situation Debate: Once upon a time, we had no personalities
 Personality and Assessment (Book by Mischel, 1968)
 r < .30  “a personality coefficient” (the correlations between personality
and real life outcomes was 0.30 which was considered low at the time)
 Concluded that traits have limited utility in predicting behaviour (i.e.
“traits don’t matter”)
 This view of traits was simply wrong – psychometrically uninformed
 Today, we recognize that a 0.30 coefficient is actually pretty good
 Reminder: Examples of Real Correlations between Different Variables


 Many well-known correlations are low (i.e. smoking and lung cancer)
 Thus, the 0.30 correlation in psychology isn’t bad
 Reminder: Meyer et al.’s (2001) conclusions
 The modal effect size in correlation terms is between .10 and .30 for psychology
as a whole (including experimental investigations), not just for personality
 We now know that Mischel’s (1968) criticism of personality based on r < .30 is
wrong
 How replicable are links between personality traits and consequential life outcomes? The
life outcomes of personality replication project (article)
 Replication crisis in psychology
 The Big Five personality traits linked to dozens of life outcomes
 Preregistered, high-powered replications of 78 previously published trait-
outcome associations
 Overall, 87% of the replication attempts were statistically significant in
the expected direction
 The personality-outcome literature provides a reasonably accurate map of
trait-outcome associations
 Basically personality psychology is ok because it uses more empirical methods
than other branches of psychology
 Criticism 2: The core psychological assumptions underlying profiling currently lack
empirical support
 Assumption 1: offenders behave in a stable fashion across crimes
 Only moderate support
  Assumption 2: A reliable relation exists between the way in which offenders
commit their crimes and their background characteristics
 Little to no support
 But Goodwill and Alison (2007) found that victim age could predict
offender age when the offender showed evidence of planning or when the
offender was very violent (moderator variables)
 The textbook is partially correct – but personality is generally predictable from
external cues
 A room with a cue: Personality judgements based on offices and bedrooms (article)
 Strangers can make valid guesses about someone’s personality traits by simply
observing the cues they leave behind in bedrooms and offices
 The authors articulate a model specifying links between
 Individuals and the physical environments they occupy
 And the environments and observers’ impressions of the occupants
 Observer ratings based purely on offices or bedrooms were compared with self0
and peer ratings of occupants and with physical features of the environments
 Findings
 Observer impressions show some accuracy
 Observers rely on valid cues in the rooms to form impressions of
occupants
 Profiling Relies on a “Lens Model”


 Underling construct (basically your true self)
 Profiling relies on cues to infer the underlying construct
 Some cues aren’t associated with the underlying construct, but in general
examining cues can give some insight into the underlying construct
 This is the model that profiling uses
 Aspects of crime are the cues, and profiles are using observer judgement
 Criticism 3: Many profiles contain information that is so vague and ambiguous they can
potentially fit many suspects
 Problem – one of the main goals is to narrow the list of subjects
 If the profiles can fit many suspects this defeats the purpose
 Alison et al. (2003a) examined 21 profiles and found that 24% contained vague
information (could be interpreted differently by different people)
 Alison et al. (2003b) found that ambiguous profiles could be interpreted to fit
more than one suspect
 Criticism 4: professional profilers are no better than untrained individuals at constructing
accurate profiles
 Criticism tested by studies in which the performance of self-labelled profilers is
compared with non-profilers (i.e. officers, psychologists)
 Given a genuine crime to review  asked to generate a profile -_.
Accuracy compared to real offender characteristics
 Snook et al. (2007) meta-analysis: profilers are slightly better (not like amazingly
better)
 Eyewitness Testimony and Memory
 Information flows through a series of stages on its way to permanent storage in
memory
 Atkinson-Shiffrin Model of Memory


 Information flows through a series of stores before making its way into
long-term memory
 Sensory memory – large capacity, but lasts for a very brief period of time
 Attention brings information from sensory memory into short-term
memory
 Short-term memory – holds 7 items (+2)
 Memory consists of stages and is prone to being forgotten
 Eyewitness Myths
 Myth: memory is like a videotape
 Actually, memories are not objective recordings of events
 We encode what we give attention
 Memories can also be influenced/changed by subsequent events (i.e.
misinformation effect)
 Myth: the presence of a weapon does not impact eyewitness’ memory
 Actually, if a weapon is present, people will focus on it and remember
other aspects of the crime to a lesser degree
 We pay more attention to the weapon and pay less information to other
parts of the crime because our brains tend to focus on threats
 The monkey business illusion
 Experiment shows that we only pay attention to things in the environment
that are directly relevant to us (our goals)
 Experiments have confederates tossing a ball back and forth and the
participant is told to count the number of times the ball is passed
 The participant doesn’t notice that someone wearing a gorilla costume
walks right through the video
 Selective attention
 Two Broad Types of Eyewitness Memory Retrieval
 Recall memory: reporting the details of a previously witnessed event or person
  Recognition memory: determining whether ap previously seen item or person is
the same as what is currently being viewed
 i.e. Police lineup procedure – asking a witness to identify the criminal in a
lineup
 These are different memory tasks
 How do we study eyewitness issues?
 Laboratory simulation studies are the most commonly used method to investigate
eyewitness issues
 Unknowing participants view a critical event  now a witness, the
participant is asked to describe what happened
 Independent variable – the variable being manipulated to see what effect
is has on the response (dependent variable)
 Two broad classes of independent variables
 Estimator variables: variables present at the time of the crime and cannot
be changed
 i.e. Lighting, the presence of a weapon, whether the witness was
intoxicated
 System variables: variables that can be manipulated to increase
(decrease) eyewitness accuracy – variables in control of the justice
system
 i.e. Police interview procedure, lineup procedure
 Three general dependent variables
 Recall of event/crime
 Recall of perpetrator
 Recognition of perpetrator
 Two Formats of Recall
 Open-ended questions (“free narrative”)
 Witnesses are asked to either write or orally state all they remember
without the officer (or experimenter) asking questions
 Direct question recall
 Witnesses are asked a series of specific questions about the crime or
perpetrator (i.e. what colour was the getaway car?)
 Recall is examined for
 The amount of information reported
 The type of information reported (i.e. central vs peripheral details)
 Accuracy  correct descriptors, commission errors, omission errors
 i.e. Peripheral details are what kind of coffee the witness was thinking of ordering
 i.e. Central details would be what the perpetrator was wearing
 i.e. Omission issues would be failing to recall that the perpetrator had freckles)
 Recognition of the Perpetrator
 Lineup: a set of people presented to witnesses, who must state whether the
perpetrator is present and identify him/her
 Recognition is examined for:
 Accuracy – what is the rate of correctly identifying the perpetrator in the
lineup? What is the rate of correctly stating that the perpetrator is not
present (correct negatives)?
  Types of errors – what is the rate of identifying an innocent person?
What is the rate of false negatives?
 Recall Memory
 The primary goal of officers interviewing witnesses is to obtain a complete and
accurate report of the crimes under investigation
 Do officers interview eyewitnesses in an optimal way?
 An example of forensic psychology in action:
 Fischer et al. (1987) – Analyzed 11 tape-recorded interviews from a
Florida police department
 Officers would generally (1) introduce themselves, (2) ask open-ended
questions, and then (3) ask a series of direct questions
 Fischer et al. (1987): Five Key Findings
 Police officers often interrupted eyewitnesses during open-ended recall
 Risks limiting the amount of information eyewitnesses remember by
preventing them from speaking or distracting them with questions
 Officers asked very short, specific questions
 Promotes more superficial cooperation
 Risks not asking critically relevant questions
 Officers asked questions in a predetermined order that didn’t match the
information the witnesses were providing
 i.e. Asking about the offender’s voice while a witness may be recalling the
offender’s clothing
 Risks limiting witness recall (i.e. mixing auditory and visual questions
decreases accuracy by 19%)
 Witnesses can “contaminate” each other by communicating with one another
 Memory conformity  when one influence report influences what
another witness reports – lose independence
 i.e. If one witness hears another witness’ interview
 Officers tended to ask “leading” or “suggestive” questions
 i.e. Questions that prompt witnesses to answer in a particular way
 Leading Questions and the Misinformation Effect
 Elizabeth Loftus – leading experimentalist in the area of leading questions
 Loftus and Palmer (1974): showed university students a video of a car accident
 How fast were the cars going when they
hit/smashed/collided/bumped/contacted each other?
 Participants reported highest rate of speed when “smashed” was used,
lowest rate when “bumped” and “contacted” were used
 Study looked at how the nature of a question (how it is presented) can influence
the manner in which participants respond
 Framing the question a certain way can influence memory
 Participants were called back into the lab one week later
  Asked whether or not they had seen broken glass
  Participants who were questioned with the word “smashed” were more
likely to recall seeing broken glass
 However, there was no broken glass in the video
  Misinformation effect: phenomenon where a witness who is presented with
inaccurate information after an event will incorporate that misinformation into a
subsequent recall task
 Also known as “post-even information effect”
 Ecological validity – limitation of experimental research
 Things don’t always work the same way in the real world the same way
they do in a lab
 However, misinformation effect does seem to have ecological validity
 The Misinformation Effect is more than experimental curiosity!
 Officers can make assumptions and inadvertently phrase questions along the lines
of these assumptions
 i.e. “Did you see the gun” vs “Did you see a gun”
 Witness contamination: a witness may alter his or her account to make it less
discrepant with that of another witness
 Officers can incorporate erroneous details from previous witnesses
 Explaining the Misinformation Effect
 Misinformation acceptance hypothesis
 Incorrect information is provided because the witness guesses what the
officer or experimenter wants to hear
 “Demand characteristics”
 Source misattribution hypothesis
 The witness has two memories – the original (accurate) and their
misinformation memory, and does not know the source of each
 Memory impairment hypothesis
 The original (accurate memory) is replaced by the new, incorrect memory
 Procedures that Help Police Interview Witnesses
 Hypnosis
 When witnesses are traumatized, they may be unable to recall a crime
 Hypnosis may help  relaxation, heightened focus and concentration
 Assumption: hypnosis improves recall
 Two general techniques: age regression and the television technique
 Research shows that hypnotized individuals provide more details but those details
are just as likely to be inaccurate vs accurate
 The police want accurate information
 Canadian courts typically do not permit information gained through hypnosis to
be used as evidence
 Elizabeth Bain
 UTSC psychology student who disappeared on June 19, 1990
 Her boyfriend, Robert Baltovich was put under surveillance
 Police hypnotized witnesses who saw Bain and Baltovich together
 In 1992, Baltovich was convicted of first-degree murder
 Baltovich’s lawyers appealed – cited the use of hypnotically refreshed
memories as one reason why the case should be set aside
 Ontario Court of Appeal overturned his conviction in 2004, acquitted in
2008
  In 2007, Supreme Court of Canada ruled that testimony elicited under hypnosis is
inadmissible because individuals under hypnosis are more suggestible
 And also have difficulty distinguishing accurate and fabricated memories
 Some believe Paul Bernardo was responsible for Bain’s murder
 Procedures that Help Police Interview Witnesses (cont.)
 The Cognitive Interview
 Interview procedure based on the principles of memory storage and
retrieval
 Reinstate context
 Reporting everything
 Reversing order
 Changing perspective
 Geiselman et al. (1995)found that cognitive interview > standard police interview
and hypnosis
 Meta-analysis by Memon et al., 2010 found that cognitive interviews increase
accurate information with a small increase in errors
 Downsides: time intensive, officers are reluctant to use it (discretion)
 Expert Testimony on Eyewitness Issues
 There’s some debate among eyewitness experts on the reliability of eyewitness
studies and the generalizability of laboratory research
 Some argue that the information provided by eyewitness experts is common sense
and therefore, unnecessary
 Ebbensen and Konecni (1997)
 Studies examining the same issues produce different results
 Most of the studies use university students (real life witnesses vary in age
and other demographic characteristics)
 Most studies allow a witness to view the perpetrator for roughly 6
seconds, real witnesses view perpetrators for 5 seconds or more
 Eyewitness Experts in Ontario
 The Canadian justice system limits expert testimony on eyewitness issues
 Ontario Court of Appeal in R. vs. McIntosh and McCarthy (1997) ruled not to
permit such testimony
 But, in a Manitoba murder case, a judge allowed the jury to hear expert testimony
on the limitations of eyewitness identification
 It’s unclear how Canadian courts will handle this issue in the future
LECTURE 5 ~ The Role of Mental Illness in Court
 Some preliminary points about the Canadian Justice System
 Civil case: private case in which a plaintiff sues a defendant
 Criminal case: the crown prosecutes an accused under a public statute
 E.g. Criminal code or Controlled Drugs and Substances Act
 Crimes are offenses against society as a whole, so it’s the state that starts a
criminal prosecution
 i.e. If you killed the prof, the crown would be taking you to court, not the
prof’s family
 Between 2011 and 2012, about 64% of criminal cases resulted in a guilty findings
(a stable figure)
 If the accused is found guilty, the judge must decide the appropriate
sentence, considering:
 Seriousness of the crime
 The range of sentences possible in the Criminal Code or other statutes
 Preventing or deterring the offender or others from committing similar
crimes
 Denouncing the harm to the victim and the illegal conduct
 The prospect of rehabilitation
 Judges may impose many different kinds of sentences or a combination of
penalties, including:
 Fine ($$$)
 Restitution: asking the offender to pay costs of injuries or loss of damage
to property
 Probation: release of the offender with conditions
 Community service (“volunteer” work in the community)
 Imprisonment
 Presumptions in Canada’s Legal System
 Two elements must be present for criminal guilt to be established
 Actus reus: latin for “guilty actions” (actions that break the law)
 Mens rea: latin for “criminal intent”
 Beyond reasonable doubt, a guilty verdict must find these elements
 Fitness to stand trial, sanity, automatism, and mental disorders can call these two
elements into question
 Flashback – On March 3 2009, Vince li was found not criminally responsible
because he was unable to form mens rea
 Fitness to Stand Trial
  The accused needs to be treated fairly
 To stand trial they need to understand the charges and legal proceedings
and be able to help (i.e. their lawyer) prepare their defense
 Unfit to stand trial: the inability to conduct a defence at any stage of the
proceedings on account of a person’s mental disorder
 i.e. The accused has schizophrenia and is unable to work with his/her
lawyer in preparing the defense
 If the accused is found unfit, he/she is diverted to a provincial or territorial
Review Board
 Typically chaired by a judge
 One member is a psychiatrist
 Determining Fitness
 Historically, case law was used to determine fitness
 R. v. Pritchard (1936)
 The defendant is mute of malice (i.e. intentionality; mens rea)
 The defendant cannot plead guilty to the indictment
 The defendant cannot understand the trial proceedings
 Bill C-30 of the Criminal Code: The accused is unfit if he/she is
 Unable on account of mental disorder to conduct a defense at any stage of
the proceedings before the verdict is rendered or to instruct counsel to do
so and in particular, unable on account of mental disorder to (a)
understand the nature or object of the proceedings, (b) understand the
possible consequences of the proceedings, or (c) communicate with
counsel
 Bill C-30 requires a five-day limit on court-ordered assessments, extended to a
maximum of 40 days, with the entire detention not exceeding 60 days
 Roesch et al. (1997) found that the average length of time for evaluation was
about 3 weeks
 88% of the time conducted at in-patient facilities
 The defense or Crown may raise the issue of fitness; however, the burden of proof
falls on the party who raises it
 About 5000 fitness evaluations are conducted annually in Canada (Webster et al., 1982)


 The number of defendants found to be unfit varies across provinces, but it’s not a
high frequency event
 i.e. In 12 years, only 1151 defendants were deemed unfit in Ontario
 Who can assess fitness?
 In Canada, only medical practitioners (MDs) are allowed to conduct court-ordered
assessments of fitness and criminal responsibility
 Don’t have to be psychiatrists or have a background in forensics
 In the US and Australia, psychologists are also allowed
  Canadian psychologists can assist with court-ordered assessments (i.e. testing)
 Submit results to psychiatrists or other medical professionals
 Psychologists can help but they aren’t leading the assessments
 Fitness Instruments
 “Screening instruments” are used to help evaluators quickly screen out
defendants who are competent to stand trial
 Comprehensive assessments are saved for those who are “screened in”
 Zapf and Roesch (1998) found that screening instruments agree with longer
psychiatric assessments
 Even though screening instruments are brief, they still work well
 Fitness Interview Test Revised (FIT-R; Roesch et al., 1998)
 Semi-structured interview that assesses the three psychological abilities stated in
the Criminal Code’s fitness standard
 Understand the nature or object of the proceedings
 Assesses factual knowledge of criminal procedure
 Defendant’s understanding of the arrest process
 The nature and severity of the current charges
 The role of key participants
 Understand the possible consequences of the proceedings
 Appreciation of personal involvement in and importance of the proceedings
 Range and nature of possible defences
 Communicate with counsel
 Ability to participate in defence
 Ability to communicate facts
 Ability to relate to his or her attorney
 Ability to plan legal strategy
 Decisions are not made on specific cut-off scores
 Section ratings are used to evaluate the severity of impairment
 How is fitness restored?
 If possible, the goal of the justice system is to restore defendant fitness
 How? Through medication
 If the defendant does not want to take medication, treatment orders may be
imposed by the court
 What happens after a finding of unfitness?
 In Canada, unfit defendants may be detained in a hospital
 Reassessed within 45 days
 If returns to fitness, proceedings result
 If unfit after 90 days, referred to review board for assessment
 If continues to be unfit, assessed on an annual basis
 Crown must provide there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial
 Courts have the ability to suspend (possibly indefinitely) the proceedings for a
defendant who is unlikely to become fit if any of the following are true:
 The accused us unlikely to ever become fit (i.e. severe mental illness)
 The accuse poses no significant threat to the public
 A stay in proceedings is in the interests of justice
 Mental State at Time of Offence
  Insanity: impaired cognitive or emotional functioning that affects perceptions,
beliefs, and motivations at the time of the offence
 Removes criminal responsibility for performing acts because of uncontrollable
impulses or delusions
  Not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder
(NCRMD)
 Bill C-30: “No person is criminally responsible for an act committed or an
omission made while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person
incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or
knowing that it was wrong”
 Raising the Issue of Insanity
 In the US, less than 1% of all felony cases are an insanity defense
 Only 25% of defendants that argue an insanity defense succeed
 Insanity defenses typically occur when opposing sides agree to reach a verdict
(i.e. guilty)
 Defendants found NCRMD are likely to have major psychiatric disorders and past
mental health problems and hospitalizations prior to rulings of unfitness
 In Canada, the accused is not considered to suffer from a mental disorder unless
the issue is raised by the defense
 Assessing Insanity: Rogers Criminal Responsibility Assessment Scales (R-CRAS;
Rogers, 1984)
1. Patient reliability (malingering/faking)
2. Organicity (brain damage)
3. Psychopathology (psychiatric disorders)
4. Cognitive control (verbal abilities, awareness, planning)
5. Behavioural control (ability to control criminal behaviour)
 Developed to standardize evaluations (ensure comprehensive assessment), not to
produce cut-off scores
 Clinicians must use all available information for making a decision about the
accused’s mental status
 What happens to a defendant found NCRMD?
 Four main criteria are considered when deciding a disposition
 Public safety
 Mental state of the defendant
 Reintegration into society
 Other needs of the defendant
 Three dispositions are possible
 Absolute discharge
 Conditional discharge
 Custody order for detention in hospital
 Absolute discharge: the defendant is released into the community without
restrictions
 If not a threat to society or poses low risk for reoffending
 Conditional discharge: defendant is released with conditions, failure to meet the
conditions can result in incarceration or being sent to a psychiatric facility
  “Capping” introduced by Bill C-30, is a maximum period of time that a
person can be affected by his/her disposition
 i.e. Someone can’t be conditionally discharged indefinitely (forever), there
must be a maximum period determined by the judge
 Detention in hospital: the defendant can be involuntarily committed to a secured
hospital
 If still a threat
 Automatism: unconscious, involuntary behaviour – the person committing the criminal
act is not aware of what they are doing
 R. v. Parks (1992) – man stabbed in-laws, charged with murder and attempted
murder, claimed he was sleepwalking, was acquitted
 Acquitted means “freed from criminal charges”
 The Criminal Code does not address automatism as a defense
 Judges have to rely on their own judgement and case law
 Supreme Court: Two forms of automatism
 Non-insane: involuntary behaviour that occurs because of external factors
 not guilty
 Insane: involuntary behaviour that occurs because of a mental disorder 
NCRDM
 Two-Stage Process for Addressing Automatism
 Judge decides whether there is sufficient evidence that a jury may find the
defendant’s behaviour involuntary
 Psychiatric assessments
 Severity of the triggering event
 History of automatic behaviour
 Judge decides between insane or non-insane automatism
 If non-insane  judge/jury decide if the accused acted involuntarily
 If insane  the defense can argue insane automatism (their goal is
NCRMD)
 Recognized Defences of Non-Insane Automatism in Canada
 A physical blow to the head
 Physical ailments (i.e. stroke)
 Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar)
 Carbon monoxide poisoning
 Sleepwalking
 Involuntary intoxication
 Psychological blow/distress (emotional/mental disturbance from extraordinary
stressor that can cause a dissociative state)
 Dissociative state where the defendant lacks awareness and isn’t
connected to reality
 Intoxication as a Defense
 R. v. Daviault (1994)
 Daviault, the accused, drank lots of alcohol and sexually assaulted a
woman in a wheelchair
 Pharmacologist testified (expert witness): “someone with this much
alcohol would suffer from a blackout” – no awareness of his actions
  Initial ruling – Daviault acquitted  non-insane automatism
 Appeal court – reversed the decision  self-induced intoxication resulting
in automatism is not an available defense for general intent offense
 General intent crime: prosecution only needs to prove that the accused intended
to commit the criminal act
 Proof of the intent to cause harm isn’t relevant
 In 1995, Bill C-72 was passed  intoxication not recognized as a defense for
violent crimes
 Defendants with Mental Disorders
 An offender can have mental health difficulties and not receive an unfit or
NCRMD verdict
 Psychiatric disorders have varied prevalence rates
 For example, in Canada, Lafortune et al (2010) found that from 2002-
2007, 61% of 671 offenders sent to short-term correctional facilities were
diagnosed with at least one disorder
 Males – psychiatric disorders, anxiety disorders, drug dependencies
 Females – anxiety, personality disorders, drug dependencies
 Why are there higher rates of mental illness in offender populations?
 Research on the topic hasn’t generated definitive answers – three possibilities
 Individuals with mental illness are arrested at a disproportionately higher
rate
 Individuals with mental illness get caught more easily
 Individuals with mental illness are more likely to plead guilty
 Other possibilities are likely at play
 Bias against mentally ill offenders?
 Poporino and Motiuk (1995) compared conditional release outcomes of
 36 male offenders meeting criteria for mental disorders
 36 male offenders not meeting criteria for mental disorders
 The offenders were matched on age, type of crime committed, history of criminal
activity
 Question: do criminal release patterns differ?
 Parole vs mandatory supervision (66% of a sentence)
 Poporino and Motiuk (1995) results
 A similar number of offenders from both groups received conditional releases
 Those with mental disorders more likely to receive mandatory supervision release
 Those with mental disorders were more likely to have their release suspended (i.e.
for not abiding by the supervision order)
 Offenders without mental disorders more likely to be re-admitted for
committing a new offence
 Other studies suggest that offenders with mental illness are more than 2x as likely
to be re-admitted into the criminal justice system
 Offenders with mental illness may be treated more cautiously
 Should offenders with mental illness be treated more cautiously?
 Baillargeon et al (2009) examined the relationship between parole revocations and
mental disorders among 8.149 offenders over the 12 month period following
offenders’ release
  Offenders with only a single psychiatric disorder were less likely to violate parole
and less likely to commit a new offence compared to those with a psychiatric
disorder and a substance abuse disorder
 Very complicated because many factors are at play
 Are people with mental illness violent?
 Mixed picture
 Bland and Orn (1986) epidemiological studies
 55% of individuals diagnosed with either anti-social personality disorder,
major depression, or alcohol/drug dependence committed physically
violent acts (fighting, using weapons) compared to only 16% of
respondents who did not meet mental disorder criteria
 80-93% of respondents with two diagnoses committed violent acts
 Basically this study suggests that yes they may be more violent if they
have 2+ diagnoses
 Baillargeon et al. (2009) defined violence as homicide, kidnapping, sexual assault,
robbery assault, and terrorism
 23% of offenders with psychic disorder vs. 28%
 Basically this study says it depends on the severity/type of violence,
people with mental illness less likely to commit severe violent crimes

LECTURE 6 ~ Risk Assessment

 Parole in Canada
 Parole: the release of offenders from prison into the community before their
maximum prison sentence is complete
1. Parole does not reduce the length of a sentence, it affects the way the
sentence is served
2. Allows offenders to serve their sentence in the community under
supervision of a parole officer
3. Parole is not automatically granted  Parole Board of Canada makes
parole decisions
 The majority of offenders are serving fixed-length sentences; they will be
released once their sentence ends
1. Parole contributes to public safety by helping offenders re-integrate into
society as law-abiding citizens through a gradual, controlled, and
supported release with conditions
 Basically parole is supposed to help people transition back into the community
 What is Risk Assessment?
 Risk assessment: predicting the likelihood that an individual will commit a
violent or anti-social act
1. Also called “violence risk assessment”
2. i.e. A violent offender is up for parole – what is the probability that he/she
will re-offend?
 Prediction: identifying risk factors for future violence
 Management: developing interventions to reduce future violence
1. What treatments or conditions may help reduce an offender’s risk?
 When are Risk Assessments Needed?
  Civil Settings
1. Civil commitment – an individual can be hospitalized if they have a
mental illness and pose a danger to themself or others
2. Child protection – to protect children from physical or sexual abuse or
neglect, a government agency may remove a child from the guardianship
of their parents
3. Mental health settings – psychiatrist or clinical psychologist can
intervene (i.e. disclose confidential client information to the police) if they
believe a client is likely to act in a violent manner (“duty to warn”)
 Criminal Settings
1. Pretrial, sentencing, and release (i.e. parole applications)
 Types of Prediction Outcomes


 As false positives decrease, false negatives increase
1.  False negatives put innocent people in society at risk of harm
2.  False positives may be tolerable in some circumstances (i.e. more
supervision is put in place) but may cost offenders (i.e. denial of freedom)
more than is warranted
 It is very difficult to predict low and high frequency (i.e. low and high base rate)
events
1. Many false positives occur with low base rate events
2. i.e. Violence is a low base rate event, thus false positives may occur
 Baxstrom and Dixon Studies
 Baxtrom vs Heralf (1966): US Supreme Court ruled that Johnnie Baxstrom was
detained beyond his sentence expiry and ordered his release
1. Following the precedent, more than 300 mentally ill offenders from
Dannemora State Hospital for the Criminally Insane were released or
transferred to less secure facilities
2. 98 of these patients had been deemed too dangerous for release but only
20 of these patients were arrested over a 4-year period (only 7 committed
violent offenses; 7%)
 Dixon vs AG of PA (1979): 400 forensic patients released into the community
1. 60 (15%) of these patients were either arrested or re-hospitalized for a
violent incident over a 3-year period following their release
 Conclusions
1. Base rate of violence is low
2. False positive rate was very high
3. Suggests that, in the past, many mentally disordered patients may have
been needlessly kept in restrictive institutions because of erroneous
judgements of violent risk
 Ennis and Litwack (1974) claimed that clinical expertise in violence risk
assessment was like “flipping coins in the courtroom”
1. Argued that clinical testimony should be barred from the courtroom
  Cocozza and Steadman (1978) claimed that “no expertise to predict dangerous
behaviour exists and the attempt to apply this supposed knowledge to predict who
will be dangerous results in complete failure”
 US and Canadian Courts have ruled that predictions of violence risk are
permissible
 “The test for admissibility is relevance, not infallibility”
 Methodological Issues
 The ideal way to evaluate risk would be to assess offenders using some
instrument and then to release all of them and track their behaviour
1. But this isn’t ethically feasible
2. In reality, we can only evaluate instruments on samples of low-risk
offenders (i.e. the ones we release)
 Monahan and Steadman (1994): three weaknesses of research on the prediction of
violence
1. Many risk factors are involved  need to measure more reasons why
people commit violence
2. Official criminal records are often used; many crimes go unreported 
many false positives may be true positives
 MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study – official agency records,
4.5% base rate of violence; patient and collateral reports added: 27.5%
3. Types of violence, targets of violence, and security of violence may
increase predictive accuracy
 It is likely that some risk factors will more strongly predict specific types
of forms of violence
 i.e. History of sexual violence may predict sexual offenses more than bank
robberies
 Approaches to the Assessment of Risk
 Unstructured Clinical Judgement – Discretionary decisions
 No predefined rules about what risk factors should be considered, what
sources of information should be used, or how the risk factors should be
combined
 “Informal, ‘in the head’, subjective, impressionistic, subjective
conclusions” (Grove and Meehl, 1996)
 Actuarial Prediction – Using variables with statistical associations with specific
outcomes
 “Mechanical prediction”
 Actuarial prediction > unstructured clinical judgement (Grove et al., 2000;
meta-analyses)
 Perhaps over-reliance on “static” risk factors, which can’t track changes in
risk over time
 Structured Professional Judgement – Blend of actuarial prediction and
unstructured clinical judgement
 Guided by predetermined list of risk factors with known associations to
outcomes but the final judgement ultimately resides with the professional
 Studies comparing SPJ and actuarial prediction are ongoing
 Comparing Risk-Assessment Approaches
  Skeem and Monohan (2011) described violence-risk-assessments approaches
having four components
 We can compare different approaches with respect to these four
components


 Types of Risk Factors
 Risk factors are measurable features of an offender that can be used to predict the
likelihood of future violence
 Static – risk factors that don’t change over time and don’t change with treatment
 i.e. Criminal history, age of first offense
 Sometimes called “historical risk factors”
 Kinda like estimator variables
 Dynamic – risk factors that change over time and are amenable to treatment
 i.e. Anti-social attitudes
 Also called “criminogenic needs”
 Risk Factors as a Continuous Construct
 Highly dynamic risk factors include variables like negative mood and level of
intoxication (change rapidly)
 Moderately dynamic risk factors (in the middle) are variables that may be targeted
for intervention (i.e. attitudes, coping skills)


 Important Risk Factors
 Static/historical risk factors – events that occurred in the past
 Dispositional risk factors – offenders’ traits, attitudes, styles
 Clinical risk factors – types and symptoms of mental disorders
 Contextual (situational) risk factors – specific aspects of an offender’s
environment
 Historical Factors
 Past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour
 Past violent behaviour is a consistent predictor of future violent behaviour
 Age of onset – offenders with earlier antisocial behaviour tend to be chronic,
serious offenders
 i.e. Elliot (1994) found that 50% of boys who committed a violent offense
prior to 11 years of age continued their violence into adulthood compared
to only 30% of whose first crime was between 11 and 13 years of age, and
only 10% of those whose first violent act occurred during adolescence
 Earlier antisocial behaviour is committed, more likely you’ll see antisocial
behaviour recurring later in life
 Childhood history of maltreatment – having a history of childhood physical
abuse or neglect is associated with future violent behaviour
 Widom (1998) found that victims of sexual abuse were no more likely
than those who weren’t abused to commit delinquent or violent offences
  However, victims of physical abuse or neglect were much more likely to
commit criminal acts compared to those who weren’t
 Dispositional Factors
 Personality characteristics: relatively stable patterns of thinking, feeling, and
behaving
 Impulsiveness and psychopathy are both associated with increased risk of crime
and violence
 High impulsiveness (low self-control)  distinguished between recidivistic and
non-recidivistic rapists
 Rapists who reoffend and those who don’t
 Psychopaths are callousness, lack of remorse, have a grandiose self-image,
manipulative
 Predicts reoffending around the world and across both genders (perhaps
less strongly in adolescent females)
 Psychopathy + deviant sexual arousal (i.e. children or non-consensual sex)
predicts sexual recidivism
 Rice and Harris (1997) found that 70% of psychopaths with deviant sexual
arousal, around 70% reoffend (vs 40% for other groups of offenders)
 Deviant sexual arousal (i.e. pedophilia, etc.)
 Clinical Factors
 Substance Use
 Drug and alcohol use is associated with criminal behaviour and violence
 Direct effects (i.e. effects on the brain) and indirect effects (i.e. the use of
crime and violence to obtain drugs)
 Possessing some drugs in itself is a crime
 Some research
 Manozi et al. (2006) – found that heroin and crack users are at the greatest
risk of committing property crimes
 Dowden and Brown (2002) meta-analysis – alcohol and drug use problems
moderately related to recidivism
 Swanson (1994) – rates of violence for men and women were 22% and
17% among those diagnosed with substance abuse problems
 Morley et al. (2015) – sexual risk-taking associated with the use of drugs
 Mental Disorder
 Most people with mental disorders are not violent but a diagnosis of
affective disorders and schizophrenia associated with higher rates of
violence
 Psychosis (problems distinguishing what’s real and what’s not)  49% to
68% increase in the odds of violence
 Contextual Factors
 Lack of Social Support
 Henggeler et al. (1998) – Four kinds of social support
 Instrumental (provide the necessities of life)
 Emotional
 Appraisal (encouraging help)
 Information
  Klassen and O’Connor (1989): Offenders’ relationship with family is related to
violence (lower quality relationships  more violence)
 Access to Weapons or Victims
 Both increase risk of recidivism (actuarial observation)
 Risk-Assessment Instruments
 The Static-99 (Hanson & Thorton, 1999)
 Sexual recidivism
 10 items, all items are static risk factors, scores range from
0 to 12
 Higher score = higher likelihood of reoffending
 The HTC-20 (Webster et al., 1997)
 Violent behaviour
 Structured Professional Judgement (SPJ) approach
 20 items – three main scales
1. Historical (static) – i.e. age at first violent offence, personality disorder
2. Clinical (current, dynamic factors) – i.e. lack of insight, impulsivity
3. Risk Management – i.e. level of personal support, exposure to
destabilizers
 Validity of Risk-Assessment Instruments
 Campbell et al. (2009) – Meta-analysis comparing several instruments, including
the HCR-20
 Effect sizes ranged between r=.24 and r=.27
 HCR-20: r=.31, in the prediction of institutional violence
 Are these valid instruments?
 Yes because most effect sizes in psychology are between .1 to .3

LECTURE 7 ~ Psychopathy
 What is psychopathy?
 Personality disorder
 Enduring patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that are
maladaptive and/or unacceptable in one’s culture
 Manipulative, lack empathy, impulsive, and engage in anti-social
behaviours
 Psychopaths tend to have abnormal brain activation and responses to
situations that would cause distress in healthy individuals
 Less responsive amygdala and limbic system
 Many offending psychopaths also have antisocial personality disorder
 A personality disorder characterized by a history of behaviour in which
the rights of others are violated
 80% of people in prison are diagnosed with APD
 Hare (2003) found that nearly all psychopathic offenders have APD, but
most offenders with APD are not psychopaths
 APD – 60-80% of all prisoners
 Psychopathy – 10-25% of prisoners
 Assessment – PCL-R
 Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised
  Based on the work of Hervey Cleckley, empirically identified characteristics of
psychopathy
 20-item scale, semi-structured interview + review of file information
 Interpersonal features (i.e. manipulativeness, grandiosity)
 Affective features (i.e. lack of remorse, shallow emotions)
 Behavioural features (i.e. impulsivity, antisocial acts)
 Each item is scored from 2 (definitely applies), 1 (applies to some extent), and 0
(does not apply) – total score ranges from 0 to 40
 Psychopaths > 30, many non-psychopathic offenders have scores around
22, people with no criminal background normally score around 5
 Early factor analyses suggested two dimensions – more recent research suggests
4 factors
 Interpersonal and affective traits  instrumental violence, emotional
deficits
 Socially deviant traits  reoffending, substance abuse, lack of education
 PCL (Hare & frazelle, 1980)


 Psychopaths aren’t good at keeping jobs because they’re prone to boredom
and frustration
 Parasitic lifestyle – living off other people’s hard work
 PCL-R Factors (Hare & Newman, 2007)
 Four factors – interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and antisocial


 Promiscuous sexual behaviour and many short-term marital
relationships don’t load strongly on any factor, they are general
characteristics that characterizer psychopathy
 Factor Analysis
 Technique used to see how different characteristics can be grouped together


  Levels of energeticness are correlated with levels of talkativeness and
boldness
 Levels of energeticness negatively correlated with shyness


 Extraversion is the factor that encompasses these correlations
 Self-Report Scales of Psychopathy
 Advantages
 Can measure low-visibility aspects (i.e. thoughts, feelings)
 Easy to administer (i.e. online)
 Easy to score
 Cheap
 No inter-rater reliability issues
 Disadvantages
 Psychopaths can lie
 Psychopaths may not have sufficient insight
 Psychopaths probably can’t validly report on emotions they don’t
experience (i.e. confuse empathy with regret of getting caught)
 Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (SRP, Paulhus et al., 2016)
 A self-report scale designed to match the factor-structure of the PCL-R
 Interpersonal Manipulation
 I find it easy to manipulate people
 I get a “kick” out of conning someone
 Criminal Tendencies
 I have been arrested
 Some of my friends have gone to jail
 Erratic Lifestyle
 I have broken an appointment when something better came along
 I have avoided paying for things such as movies, rides, and food
 Callous Affect
 I’m not afraid to step on others to get what I want
 Not hurting others’ feelings is important to me (R)
 Total scores on SRP correlate with low agreeableness and low
conscientiousness
 Psychopathy vs APD vs Sociopathy
 APD emphasizes antisocial behaviours whereas the PCL-R SRP are broader
measures
 Psychopathy includes lifestyle factors
 “Sociopathy” assumes that someone’s psychopathy is/was caused by the
environment
 It embeds theory, makes assumptions that may or may not be correct
 Assumes that one’s psychopathy was caused by the environment
  This term isn’t used as much anymore because psychopathy seems to be
genetic rather than social
 Nature vs Nurture
 Behavioural genetic research suggests that psychopathic traits are substantially
heritable
 i.e. In a US sample of N=604, 15-year-old twins, Tuvblad et al. (2014)
found that up to 69% of the variance in psychopathy can be attributed to
genetic factors
 Behavioural genetics: the study of genetic and environmental influences on
behaviour
 Heritability: the contribution of genetics to the variation of a trait observed in a
population
 Does Family Matter?
 The best research method to determine whether family experiences are related to
the development of psychopathy is to conduct a prospective longitudinal study
 According to the textbook
 Follow young children over time and measure family variables along with
psychopathic traits
 i.e. Weiler and Widom (1996) followed 900 children who had been abused or
neglected before age 11
 Compared to a sample matched on age, race, gender, school, place of
residence
 After 20 years, psychopathy was measured with the PCL-R
 Children who had been abused had slightly higher PCL-R scores
 The Weiler and Widom is confounded
 It is possible that the genetic influences that increase the likelihood of a
parent being abusive/neglectful are also leading to children becoming
psychopaths
 Studying identical twins would be able to control for genetics and just
look at the impact of environment
 Genes  Non-shared environment  Shared environment ranked in order
of which has the highest influence on personality
 Psychopathy and Law Enforcement
 O’Toole (2007): “Psychopathy can be described as one of law enforcement’s
greatest challenges”
 Psychopaths engage in lots of crime  more likely to come in contact with police
 Contact can be lethal
 Half of cop killers (people that kill cops) are psychopaths
 Psychopaths are difficult to interrogate
 Typical minimization tactics aren’t effective
 Instead, appealing to their sense of grandiosity and need for status might
be more effective
 i.e. Minimization tactics and saying stuff like “you already know but…”
 Psychopaths are Difficult to Interrogate
 Psychopaths will:
 Try to outwit the interrogator (it’s a “game” for them)
  Enjoy being the focus of attention
 Attempt to control the interrogation
 Aren’t easily fooled by bluffs (they have lots of experience manipulating
people)
 May try to shock
 Quayle (2008) suggests:
 Ensure case familiarity (psychopaths will evade and lie)
 Convey confidence and authority (interrogators can’t allow psychopaths to
control the session)
 Show liking or admiration (other minimization tactics won’t work)
 Avoid criticism (they’ll stop the interview or become hostile)
 Avoid conveying emotions (don’t give away information)
 Ted Bundy
 Theodore Robert Bundy (1946-1989)
 American serial killer – kidnapped, raped, and murdered numerous young women
and girls in the 70s
 Got the death penalty
 Handsome, charismatic, and smart
 Called himself “the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you’ll ever meet”
 One of his lawyers, Polly Nelson, said Bundy was “the very definition of heartless
evil”
 Psychopaths see people as “suckers” or “sheep” that are just waiting to be
conned
 Attended law school but never graduated, represented himself in court
 Interview the day before his execution (video)
 He grew up in a good home with a loving family
 Very articulate and shows a deep understanding of himself
 Paul Bernardo
 Paul Kenneth Bernardo (aka Paul Jason Teale), born 1964
 Sadistic serial rapist and serial killer
 With his wife, Karla Homolka
 “The Scarborough Rapist”
 At least 3 or 4 schoolgirls, more than 13 rapes
 UTSC student
 Possibly involved in the disappearance of Elizabeth Bain
 2014 Police Investigation (video)
 Being difficult and defensive when answering questions
 Psychopathy and Treatment
 Motivation for Treatment
 Hare (1998): unlike most offenders, they [psychopaths] suffer little
personal distress, see little wrong with their attitudes and behaviours, and
seek treatment only when it is in their best interest to do so (such as when
seeking probation or parole)
 Efficacy of Treatment
 Retrospective study by Rice et al. (1997)
  Recognized as the best-known study of treatment outcomes in
psychopaths
 “Retrospective study”  participant groups already established before the
study is finished
 Intensive treatment program on violent psychopathic and non-psychopathic
forensic psychiatric patients
 Forensic patients who spend 2 years in treatment paired with forensic
patients who were assessed but intreated
 Psychopaths  PCL-R scores of >25 or higher
 Patients followed for 10 years after release
 Violent recidivism
 39% for untreated non-psychopaths
 22% for treated non-psychopaths
 55% for untreated psychopaths
 77% for treated psychopaths (treatment makes them more likely to
reoffend?)
 Does treatment really make psychopaths worse? A review of the evidence
 The quality of the research that exists is very poor
 Very little evidence suggesting that treatment makes psychopaths better
 Unclear if treatment makes psychopaths worse
 A Psychoanalytic Perspective
 Drs. Stanton Samenow and Samuel Yochelson
 Suggested that criminals who undergo therapy learned to better manipulate others
and are more likely to re-offend than those who don’t go through therapy
 Forensic Use of Psychopathy
 Psychopathy plays a role in many types of cases
 Testimony associated with increased severity of disposition
 Transfer from youth to adult court
 Dangerous offender hearings
 Determine parole eligibility
 Assess mental state at time of offence
 Adversarial allegiance – forensic experts can act as “hired guns”, can have bias
toward the side that hired them
 i.e. Murrie et al. (2013) experiment – forensic psychologists and
psychiatrists were deceived (consulting for prosecution or defense);
prosecution condition gave higher PCL-R scores
 But, proper training seems to alleviate such biases
 Psychopathic Behaviour
 In the general population, psychopathy is rare
 Psychopaths are prolific offenders; engage in various types of crime (from minor
theft to murder)
 Start offending at a younger age
 Psychopathic violence is more likely to be predatory in nature, motivated
by readily identifiable goals carried out in a calculated manner without the
emotional context that usually characterizes the violence of other
offenders
  But not all psychopaths are violent
 Organizational study by Babiak (2000) – psychopaths are skilled at getting
information about other employees, spread rumours, cause interpersonal
problems at work, they don’t pull their own weight and find ways to blame
others
 Babiak et al (2010) – strategic thinkers, stronger communication skills

LECTURE 8 ~ Human Trafficking in Canada

 Human Trafficking
 Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, harbouring, or controlling of
persons for the purpose of exploiting those persons through forced labour
 Somebody is doing this to you, and profiting from you
 Can be difficult to define but we will use a working definition
 Elements of Human Trafficking


 What is human trafficking (video)
 Over 20.9M women and men are victims of human trafficking
 Traffickers prey on people’s dreams and lure them away for their own benefit
 Trafficking is a process
 Human Trafficking = Act + Means + Purpose
 Act – recruiting, transporting, harbouring, receiving
 Means – threats, force, abduction, deception, abuse of power, giving
payments or benefits
 Purpose – exploitation
 For anyone under 18, only the act and purpose matter for it to be a case of human
trafficking
 Prevalence
 According to the Toronto Police Services (TPS) stats in 2013-2014, the TPS
human trafficking division recorded
 113% increase in occurrences
 360% increase in arrests
 4000% increase in search warrants related to domestic human trafficking
for the purposes of sexual exploitation
 Trafficking is a high reward crime (up to $3000 cash) with low risk (domestic sex
trafficking happens the most – victims have no idea that this is happening)
 i.e. Trafficking a boyfriend or girlfriend – their partners don’t realize
they’re being trafficked or are too afraid to say anything
 An estimated 16,000 Canadians are being trafficked in Canada
 These are police reported statistics, the number is likely larger than this
but the crimes go unreported
 71-93% of all Canadian cases involve domestic sex trafficking
 Majority are female and LGBTQ+ groups
  Majority are under 25 years old
 Types of Human Trafficking
 Labour exploitation
 Sexual exploitation*
 Organ harvesting
 Forced marriage
 Domestic servitude*
 Forced criminality*
 Child soldiers*
 *Forms of labour exploitation
 Labour Exploitation
 Refers to situations where people are coerced to work for little or no
remuneration, often under the threat of punishment
 There are a number of means through which a person can be coerced,
including:
 Use of violence or intimidation
 Accumulated debt
 Retention of identity papers
 Threat of exposure to immigration authorities
 Immigration trafficking – mainly agricultural work
 i.e. Being brought from Mexico into a winery in Niagara to repay debt
 All types of labour, within every industry, are susceptible to labour exploitation
 Some common sectors and industries that are identified as vulnerable include:
 Manufacturing, factory work, hospitality, construction, agriculture,
fishing, car washes, nail bars
 In Canada, majority of domestic trafficking is sexual trafficking
 Sexual Exploitation
 This is when someone is deceived, coerced, or forced to take part in sexual
activity
 Places where someone could be sexually exploited:
 Prostitution, brothels (massage/sauna), escort agencies, pole/lap dancing,
forced marriage, stripping on a webcam, phone sex lines, internet chat
rooms, pornography, mail order brides, sex tourism
 Organ Harvesting
 The trafficking in organs involves removing a part of the body, commonly the
kidneys and liver, to sell often as an illegal trade
 Organs can be taken in a number of ways
 Trade: a victim formally or informally agrees to sell an organ, but are
then cheated because they are not paid for the organ, or are paid less than
the promised price
 Ailments: a vulnerable person is treated for an ailment, which may or may
not exist, and the organs are removed without the victim’s knowledge
 Extortion: a victim may be kidnapped from their family and organs
removed without consent
 Forced Marriage
 This is when a person is put under pressure to marry someone
  This may be threatened with physical or sexual violence or placed under
emotional or psychological distress to achieve these aims
 Situations where you may find forced marriage used:
 To gain access into a country
 To gain access to benefits
 Domestic Servitude
 A domestic worker or helper is a person who works within their employer’s home
performing a variety of tasks
 This arrangement becomes exploitative when there are restrictions on the
domestic worker’s movement, and they are forced to work long hours for little
pay
 They may also suffer physical and sexual abuse
 Places where someone can be in domestic servitude
 In a private home
 In a community such as a commune
 Forced Criminality
 This is when somebody is forced to carry out criminal activity through coercion
or deception
 Forced criminality can take many forms including:
 Drug trade (i.e. cannabis cultivation, drug distribution)
 Begging
 Pick-pocketing
 Bag snatching
 ATM theft
 Selling of counterfeit goods
 Forced criminality also encompasses social welfare fraud
 Takes place when exploiters falsely apply for tax credits and other welfare
benefits using the victims’ details
 It is not the only the state that is the victim of social welfare fraud
 There is often horrific abuse used against the individual in order to coerce
them into falsely applying for benefits
 Child Soldiers
 These are children and young people, ranging from as young as 4 up to 18, who
are used for any military purpose
 It affects both males and females
 Children may be used for frontline combat – which means they are made to
commit acts of violence
 or auxiliary roles such as informants or kitchen hands
 Often the children are also sexually abused
 This type of practice is most prevalent in parts of Africa and Asia
 Domestic Sex Trafficking (DST)
 71-93% of sex trafficking in Canada is DST
 Why focus on DST?
 Majority of human sex trafficking that occurs within Canada
 Many individuals being trafficked have no idea they’re being trafficked
  The reality of human trafficking isn’t always people crying in black and white –
victims can’t relate to this and don’t realize what is happening
 Non-fear-based, trauma-informed trafficking
 “Pimp” and “trafficker” mean the same thing
 The difference between sex trafficking and sex work
 Sex work spectrum: 3 Cs


 Choice, circumstance, and coercion
 Coercion is the only part that is considered trafficking


 Myths and Misconceptions
 Someone you know (victims tend to be trafficked by someone you know which
lowers your guard)
 Not kidnapped (many victims still live at home and go to school)
 Not locked up/tied up (traffickers tend to use psychological manipulation/trauma
bonds)
 Physical violence
 Drug use (tend to be introduced in playful ways like let’s smoke weed and go out)
 Consent (many victims believe this is their choice)
 Gender (highly gendered crime, police reports suggest this occurs more in women
but it’s possible than male victims aren’t coming forward)
 Age (traffickers tend to be of a similar age to the victim)
 Stages of Commercial Exploitation


 How someone becomes manipulated into becoming trafficked
 Luring – traffickers trying to find a vulnerable individual, perhaps someone who
has experienced relational trauma in the past
 Looking for someone with low self-esteem, low income, etc.
 Approaching them and gauging whether they want to be talked to, but they
do it in a way that makes the victim feel special and appreciated
  They want to figure out which one of the victim’s needs are not being met
(i.e. are they homeless, hungry, etc.)
 Grooming & gaming stage – all of the victim’s needs are being met
 i.e. If they’re hungry they will feed them, if they have low self-esteem
they will raise it
 They see the victim as an investment and may even buy them expensive
clothes and bags because they know they’ll make their money back
 Either begin illicit drug use in a fun and playful way or if they already
have an addiction they give it to them
 The victim feels good in this stage, they feel like their dreams are coming
true
 Coercion & Manipulation – withdrawing the attention they were giving to the
individual before
 Making the victim feel like they’re walking on egg shells – the victim will
want that attention back
 The victim will try to get back on the trafficker’s good side by basically
doing whatever they want (i.e. sending nudes, holding drugs, etc.)
 Pushing the victim’s morals and beliefs
 Victim rewarded for performing sexual acts (rewards such as
drugs/money)
 Associating sex with monetary gain – conditioning the victim
 Exploitation – confinement and isolation from healthy support systems
 i.e. The victim moves in with the trafficker and gets removed from their
friends and family
 Isolating the victim from healthy support systems and creating an
association between sexual acts and monetary gain
 Now that the victim has been broken down enough they are put into sex
trade directly (i.e. I’ve given you all of this, now it’s your turn to pay me
back) or indirectly (i.e. using the ideas of love/relationship to convince
them to do sexual acts)
 Threats and physical violence can be used as well
 Recruitment – traffickers asking victims to start recruiting other people
 Victims go into recruiters because it can help them to survive (i.e. less
time spent having sex, regaining sense of power, etc.)
 Women in the role of recruiter
 Self-preservation
 Survival
 Reclaiming power
 Feels like an opportunity
 Important for us to see them as survivors of HT ourselves
 Warning Signs
 
 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs


 Traffickers meet all of the victim’s needs that aren’t being met
 Service providers ‘compete’ with traffickers to make sure the victim’s needs are
met and they are no longer dependant on the trafficker
 Stages of Change


 How a victim gets out of a trafficking situation
 Many victims “relapse” due to fear of physical violence, fear of the unknown (i.e.
where am I going to sleep, eat, etc.), and trauma bonds
 Trauma bonds built by giving and taking away attention from someone – very
difficult to break
 Stages of Change as Points of Intervention
 Precontemplation: how to continue safely
 Contemplation: explore pros/cons, what needs are being met?
 Acknowledging that there are pros and cons of staying
 Building a rapport with the client
 Preparation: psycho-education re: cycle of exploitation
 Action: process their narrative/attachment/historical trauma, planning their
preferred change
 This is when the person actually leaves the trafficking situation
 Maintenance: process temptations returning and strengths of leaving,
reconnection, reconnection with trusted support system and goal planning
 Trauma & Violence Informed Approaches
 Assumes everyone could have been traumatized (consider what we “do not
know”)
 Recognizes the connections between violence, trauma, negative health outcomes
and behaviours
 Increases safety, control and compassion for people who are seeking services who
may have a history of trauma/violence
 Uses language and responses that prevent re-traumatization
 Dangers of Re-traumatization
 Service providers can retraumatize their clients if they aren’t careful


 Mainly avoid recreating power differentials between service providers and
survivors as much as possible
 Dangers of Re-exploitation


 Survivors are the best subject matter experts on trafficking
 Key questions to keep in mind


 Never ask questions out of your own curiosity that aren’t related to getting them
help (i.e. how many people do you sleep with each night?)
 Risk and Vulnerability Factors


 Stages of commercial exploitation – luring stage are where these factors come
into play
 Anyone at any point in their life can be a victim of trafficking
 Victims have needs not being met on Maslow’s hierarchy leaving them
susceptible to trafficking
  Engaging in sex work can make people vulnerable (i.e. more contact with people
offering more money)
 Being a female or an ethnic minority itself isn’t what makes you vulnerable, it’s
living in a society with systematic racism/issues that makes you vulnerable
 Human Trafficking in the Context of Colonialism and Racism
 Slavery
 Slavery normalized the sexual and labour exploitation of Black women
and girls
 Aboriginal persons were bought and sold in Canada until the abolition of
slavery
 “By its own legal and conceptual definitions of human trafficking, the Canadian
state has long been complicit and continues to be directly complicit in the human
trafficking of Indigenous women and girls” – Robyn Bourgeois, 2015
 “Black women in the sex trade are more likely to be arrested, assaulted by pimps,
johns, and sometimes law enforcement, work in lower-paid positions in the sex
economy
 The risk factors for trafficking are intersecting and complex
 Racialized Groups
 Racial and ethnic minorities are 2x as likely to be trafficked than their white
counterparts
 They are also more likely to enter at a younger age
 Racial and ethnic minorities are also more likely to engage in street-based
prostitution compared to white women, putting them at higher risk
 Indigenous Persons and Human Trafficking
 Legacy of Colonization and Residential schools
 Disproportionately higher rates of human trafficking in Indigenous populations
 Lack of awareness, acknowledgement, and understanding of sexual exploitation
 Violence
 Poverty
 Isolation and need for a sense of belonging
 Racism
 Substance use
 Role of gangs
 Gaps in service provision
 Discriminatory policies and legislation
 Indigenous Overrepresentation: Responses
 Human Trafficking Responses
 Recognition and acknowledgement of domestic human trafficking
 Establish a national strategy to combat human trafficking
 Bridge the policy-practice gap
 Preventative approaches over reactionary approaches
 Capacity building of NGOs
 Indigenous Specific Responses
 Honour Indigenous knowledge
 Recognize diversity among Indigenous groups
 Alliance between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups
  Culturally relevant services
 Capacity building within Indigenous communities
 Legislative reforms
 LGBTQ+ Identity and Human Trafficking
 LGBTQ+ children and youth experience a higher rate of vulnerability to sex
trafficking
 This vulnerability stems, in part from, family rejection, abandonment, or
emotional and physical abuse arising from homophobic/transphobic reactions of
guardians
 Systemic discrimination, in the education, metal health and health care, and
justice systems, exacerbates risk
 If these vulnerabilities are left unaddressed, rates of LGBTQ children
experiencing sex trafficking will worsen as the overall problem of HT grows
 Human Trafficking in the context of gender-based violence
 Gender inequality in society normalizes gender-based violence
 Issues such as language, glass ceilings, stereotyping, etc. all enable HT


 In Canada, 1 woman is killed by an intimate partner every 8 days (every 4 days
since the pandemic started)
 GBV and HT
 Gender =/= sex
 GBV > Violence against Women and Girls (excludes those that aren’t included in
the gender binary)
 Violence serves to maintain structural gender inequalities
 Social system in which men hold primary power is called “The Patriarchy”
 Men predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege,
and control of property
 GBV influences or is influenced by gender relations
 Intersectionality
 The combination of different identities and experiences when they intersect,
determine your positionality in society
 Intersectionality was a term coined by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989
 Describes how race, class, gender, and other individual characteristics
“intersect” with one another and cause overlapping oppression
 In order to understand human trafficking and why it happens
 We need to understand the underlying structural factors and the political,
social, and economic conditions that create a vulnerability for trafficking
to occur in the first place
  Human Trafficking Laws
 Human trafficking is illegal in Canada
 It is an offense under both immigration law and criminal law
 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act
 Under section 118, it is against the law to recruit or being someone to Canada by
taking them against their will, using threats or force, or tricking them
 Additionally, it is against the law to keep someone in Canada against their will or
control their movements by using the methods mentioned above
 Criminal Code of Canada


 Gaps in the Law
 This offence has resulted in successful convictions in a limited number of cases
and criminal justice authorities have continued to rely on alternate or
complementary charges in cases of human trafficking
 Fear of life – a reasonable person would be fearful in this situation
 Prosecutions for cases involving non-sexual behaviour labour trafficking remain
extremely low
 Conflation between human trafficking and sex work has impacted the resulting
implementation of laws at the domestic state level
 Limiting not only the advancement of provisions to protect the rights of
individuals working in sex industries
 But also the implementation of measures that address other forms of
exploitation falling within the broader rubric of human trafficking
 Including forced labour, debt bondage, and domestic servitude
 Recommendations
 Help youth create a safety plan that includes tools to manage physical/mental
health, well being, and financial security
 Build resiliency, help youth by sharing tools and resources that strengthen
resilience
 Help youth access basic necessities such as housing (dedicated safe house if
possible), food banks, financial support, health care, etc.
 Collaborate with agencies to maximize supports and resources
 Opportunities

LECTURE 9 ~ Sexual Offenders

 A few notes on last week’s presentation
 A note on the “sex work spectrum”
 Choice: a person chooses to do sex work
  i.e. Takes own pictures, books own clients
 Circumstance: a person does sex work because he or she believes it’s his or her
only choice, nobody else profits from the sex worker
 i.e. Having an addictions issue, feels it’s necessary
 Coercion: a person is forced into sex work, someone else profits from the sex
work  this is human trafficking
 i.e. Trafficker books clients and controls the money
 What is intimate partner violence?
 Domestic violence: any violence that occurs between family members
 Typically occurs in private settings
 In Canada, more attention has been given to domestic violence since the
1980s, possibly because of social activism
 Intimate partner violence: any violence that occurs between intimate partners
 A specific type of domestic violence; sometimes called “spousal violence”
 Physical abuse (i.e. hitting, punching)
 Sexual abuse (i.e. forcing sex)
 Financial abuse (i.e. restricting access to personal funds)
 Emotional abuse (i.e. verbal attacks, degradation)
 Measurement
 Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) and its revision, the CTS2 is the most widely used
instrument
 Self-report scale consisting of 39 items
 Respondents indicate how frequently they engage in certain behaviours and how
frequently they experience certain acts
 Primarily used to assess the prevalence of intimate partner violence and its
associations with other variables
 CTS2 Subscales and Items
 5 subscales
 Negotiation (healthy conflict tactics)
 Psychological aggression
 Physical assault
 Sexual coercion
 Injury scale
 Archer’s (2002) Meta-Analysis
 Reviewer 48 studies using the CTS
 Females more likely to engage in minor physical aggression (i.e. slapping,
kicking)
 Males more likely to beat up or choke partners
 Men in treatment for intimate partner violence engage in higher rates of
minor and physical violence compared to men in community samples
 Within community and university samples, males and females commit
equal amounts of violence
 Self-report vs partner-reports: people self-report fewer violent acts than
their partners; males more likely to under-report
 Related meta-analysis by Stockdale et al. (2013) – females use verbal
aggression (a type of emotional/psychological aggression) more often than males
 Criticisms of the CTS/CTS2
 Scales do not assess all potential violent acts
 Scales do not assess motives for violence; initiating and responding with violence
are treated equally
 Scales do not account for the different consequences of the same act for men and
women (i.e. getting punched by a man vs a woman)
 Statistics Canada (2016): 40% of women vs 24% of men report being
injured in their most recent violent episode
 Husband Battering and Same-Sex Battering
 Is intimate partner violence always male-initiated?
 No, Williams and Freize (2005) examined 3,519 couples
 The two most common types of violence were mutual mild and mutual
sever violence
 Are police officers biased against men in their responses to intimate partner
violence?
 Possibly, Brown (2004) found that:
 When a female is injured, the male is charged 91% of the time but when a
male is injured, the female is charged 60% of the time
 When there are no injuries, the female is charged 13%, but bales are
charged 52% of the time
 Unclear if men are more violent, or just more likely to be charged
 Do gay and lesbian couples show similar patterns of intimate partner violence?
 No, gay men are often both perpetrators and victims
 Lesbian couples tend to socially isolate themselves, which is troubling
because social isolation predicts increased physical abuse
 Some Findings from the General Social Survey
 Included a modified version of the CTS
 N = 33,127 (age 15+)
 Respondents asked about their experiences within the last 12 months and past 5
years
 General Findings
 1% of men and women reported experiencing physical or sexual assault in
the last 12 months (down from 2% in the GSS from 2009)
 4% of men and women reported experiencing physical or sexual assault in
the last 5 years (down from 6% in the GSS from 2009)
 Gender
 Women report experiencing more severe forms of violence than men
 i.e. 34% of women vs 16% of men report being beaten, choked, or
sexually assaulted by their partners
 Women more likely to get injured (40% vs 24%)
 Only 19% of violence reported to police; violence against women more
likely to be reported
 Most common reason for not reporting – victims felt it was a personal
matter
 Sexual Orientation
  Lesbian and bisexual women were 4x more likely to report violence than
heterosexual women
 Aboriginal Populations
 Aboriginal respondents more than 2x the amount of intimate partner
violence than non-Aboriginal respondents (9% vs 4%) over the last 5 yrs
 Aboriginal women, in particular, were more likely to be victimized
(compared to non-Aboriginal women)
 Aboriginal respondents reported experiencing and witnessing more abuse
as children
 Related Study – Akers and Kaukinen (2009) found that Aboriginal women are
more likely to contact the police than non-Aboriginal, non-minority women
 Despite relying on law enforcement more, Aboriginal women still
experience a higher incidence of intimate partner violence
 Psychological Theories of Intimate Partner Violence
 Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura)
 People learn new behaviours by imitating others and observing the rewards and
punishments (vicarious learning)
 Observational learning: learning behaviours by watching others perform
behaviours in question
 Bandura emphasized people’s family of origin, their subculture, and TV as
major sources of observational learning  imitated behaviour that’s
rewarded is more likely to get repeated
 Male batterers are more likely to have witnessed parental violence than
nonviolence
 Instigators: events that act as a stimulus for an acquired behaviour
 Aversive instigators: produce emotional arousal; male batterers tend to
label different emotional states as anger (“emotional funnel system”)
 Inventive instigators: perceived rewards; perception that aggression can
satisfy needs
 Possible treatment would be developing skills to cope with instigators, and
having the punishments outweigh the rewards following aggression
 Regulators: consequences of behaviour
 External punishment (i.e. getting arrested)
 Self-punishment (i.e. feelings of remorse)
 If rewards outweigh regulators (and alternatives aren’t available for
coping with instigators), the likelihood of violence increases
 Psychological Theories of Intimate Partner Violence
 Evolutionary Psychology
 The selective pressures of losing access to resources in relationships (i.e. sex)
and events that threaten access to resources (i.e. sexual competitors) resulted in
evolved strategies that work to maintain and protect relationship resources
 Intimate partner violence may be one such strategy
 i.e. Emotional abuse  makes partner feel that they can’t be loved by
anyone else, discouraging them from leaving
 i.e. Physical abuse and threats of violence  prevent partner from
showing interest in other potential mates
  Makes specific predictions:
 For example, intimate partner violence should be more likely when there
is sexual infidelity (perceived or actual), when one partner is much more
attractive than the other, and in families involving stepchildren
 Why do battered women stay?
 Ewing and Aubrey (1987) gave people a hypothetical scenario about a couple
with marital problems, including intimate partner violence
 Husband assaulted his wife (accused her of cheating) by grabbing her and
throwing her to the floor
 Respondents asked to rate their agreement with some statements
 The female victim bears some responsibility (males=47%, females=30%)
 The woman could simply leave her battering husband (males=57%,
females=71%)
 The battered woman who stays is “somewhat masochistic” (males=24%,
females=50%)
 Battering is an isolated event (males=40%, females=27%)
 Basically people have widespread and untrue beliefs about why battered
women stay
 The decision to stay, leave, or return to an abusive partner is complex
 Walker (1979) proposed a 3-stage cycle of abuse
 Tension building – interpersonal tension, poor communication, victim is
fearful
 Acting out – violent, abusive incident
 Honeymoon – abuser apologizes, affection returns
 Criticism – intimate partner violence isn’t so predictable
 Abuse is better understood as a dynamic requiring context
 Learned Helplessness (Seligman) – battered women just “give up”
 Critique:
 Battered women may behave passively on purpose in order to appease
their abuser
 Many women do attempt to leave
 Basically they don’t “give up” they do other things
 Violence Against Women Survey (Johnson, 1996)
 42% of battered women left their abusive husbands for a short time or
permanently
 Suggests that the learned helplessness explanation isn’t as valid
 Primary reasons: fear of increasing severity, having their children witness
the violence, reporting violence to police
 70% of women returned home at least once
 Primary reasons: for the sake of the children (31%), to give the
relationship another chance (24%), the husband promised to change
(17%), lack of money or a place to go (9%)
 Why do battered women stay?
 Kim and Gray (2008) explored the predictors of a woman’s decision to stay or
leave after being abused (n=452), interviews one week after physical abuse
  Predictors of leaving – more financial dependence, less fear of leaving,
higher self-esteem, more internal locus of control
 One year after leaving – women had more vitality, better mental health,
and more relationships, but still scored below average on these variables
 The effects of intimate partner violence seems to last for a while
 Police Discretion: Mandatory Charging Policies
 Wife battering was once seen and treated as a family matter
 Police were reluctant to get involved
 On the scene, the main goal was to restore calm
 Since the 1980s, in both Canada and the US, mandatory charging policies came
into effect
 Police have the ability to lay charges against a suspect where there are
reasonable and probable grounds to believe domestic assault occurred
 Before this policy, women had to bring charges against their partners;
women were often hesitant (fear) and fewer charges were laid
 Results suggest that arrest works as a deterrent for men who are employed
(lower recidivism rates) but not for those who are unemployed
 Arrests increase court-mandated treatment
 Treating Intimate Partner Violence
 Duluth model: feminist psychoeducational program
 Based on the idea that “patriarchy” as the main cause of partner violence
 Assumes that a battering man believes it’s his right to control his
wife/girlfriend – treatment is focused on challenging this presumed belief
 Treatment atmosphere is blaming and punitive
 High drop-out rate (up to 75%)
 Criticisms
 Focuses on violence done by men to women; neglects woman-to-man and
woman-to-woman violence
 Views violence as one-sided but violence is often mutual (cannot only be
the man that needs to change)
 Uses shaming – fails to establish therapeutic alliance between client and
therapist
 Violence is multi-dimensional, but the Duluth Model mostly focused on
power and control in relationships
 Duluth model has had “negligible success in reducing or eliminating violence
among perpetrators”
 Treating Intimate Partner Violence
 Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT): violence is learned behaviour, violence
is reinforced for the offender because they obtain victim compliance and reduces
feelings of tension
 Sees violence as a maladaptive coping strategy, aims to develop
alternatives to violence
 i.e. Anger management and communication skills training
 Babcock et al. (2004) meta-analysis: found no differences between Duluth Model,
CBT, and couples therapy on recidivism
  More optimistically, Bennett et al. (2007) found that men who completed
treatments were less than half as likely to be re-arrested for intimate partner
violence than those who did not finish the intervention
 A few information bites about sexual violence in 2014
 20,735 sexual assaults against adults were reported to the police in Canada
 That’s 58 per 100,000
 In 9% of cases, victims were unable to provide consent as a result of
drugs, alcohol intoxication, or otherwise forced without physical assault
 In 71% of cases – sexual touching
 20% if cases – forced sexual activity
 4,452 sexual assaults against children
 That’s 13 per 100,000
 The rate of sexual assault among the Aboriginal population was more than 2x that
of non-aboriginal
 115 per 1000 (Aboriginal) vs 24 per 1000 (non-Aboriginal)
 Official statistics don’t necessarily provide an accurate measure
 GSS in 2014 found that 95% of adult sexual assault victims didn’t report the
assault to the police. Why?
 Adult victims – don’t believe the matter is important enough, fear revenge,
believe the police wouldn’t find the offender, don’t want to get the
offender in trouble, fear of shame or dishonour, feel the matter is personal
 Child victims – fearful what will happen to them or their parents, don’t
think they’ll be believed, think they’re somehow to blame, not fully aware
that what happened is unacceptable
 What is Sexual Assault?
 Before 1983, a few different offenses were grouped as “rape”
 “A male person commits rape when he has sexual intercourse with a
female who is not his wife… without her consent”
 Not very exacting – doesn’t take different relationships into account,
doesn’t describe the nature of sexual assault (intercourse)
 Sexual assault: any non-consensual sexual act by either a male or female person
to either a male or female person, regardless of the relationship between the
people involved
 Simple sexual assault: maximum sentence 10 years
 Sexual assault with weapon or causing bodily harm: maximum
sentence 14 years
 Aggravated sexual assault (victim is wounded, maimed, disfigured,
brutally beaten, or in danger of losing their life): maximum sentence is life
imprisonment
 Consequences for Victims
 Can have serious physical and psychological consequences
 Kross (1993): up to 30% of rape victims contract STDs, pregnancy results
in 5% of cases
 Rape trauma syndrome (Burgess & Holmstrom, 1974) identified common symptoms in
the aftermath of being raped
  Interviewed 92 women who had been raped; first interview within 30 minutes of
arriving at the hospital; second interview 1 month later
 Acute crisis phase: lasts days to several weeks
 High levels of fear
 Anxiety and depression
 Ask “why did this happen to me?”
 May blame themselves
 Long-term reactions phase: lasts months to several years
 25% of women don’t really recover
 Develop phobias (i.e. fears of being left home alone)
 Sexual problems and depression
 Chronic physical symptoms may develop (i.e. poor sleep, muscle tension)
 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (from DSM-5)
 Recurrent, involuntary and intrusive memories
 Recurrent distressing dreams related to traumatic event
 Dissociative symptoms (i.e. flashbacks) in which victim feels like they are
reliving the event
 Intense psychological distress and/or physiological reactions at exposure to
internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic
event
 Negative changes in cognitions and mood
 Inability to remember important details of traumatic event (typically due
to drugs, head injury, or dissociative amnesia)
 Persistent and exaggerated negative beliefs or expectations about oneself
(i.e. “I am bad”, “no one can be trusted”, “the world is completely
dangerous”)
 Persistent negative emotional state (i.e. fear, horror, guilt, shame) and/or
inability to experience positive emotions
 Diminished interest in activities
 Feelings of detachment or estrangement from others
 Irritability, exaggerated startle response, problems concentrating, sleep
disturbances, self-destructive behaviours, hypervigilance
 Foa et al. (1992) assessed PTSD symptoms in 95 female rape victims over 9
months
 After 1 month, 65% of victims were diagnosed
 After 9 months, 47% were diagnosed
 Kilpatrick et al. (1987) found that 16.5% of rape victims had PTSD 15 years after
rape – lasting negative consequences
 Classification of Sexual Offenders
 Voyeurs: people who obtain sexual gratification by observing unsuspecting
people in the process of undressing or engaging in sexual activity
 Exhibitionists: people who obtain sexual gratification by exposing their genitals
to strangers
 Rapists: offenders who sexually assault victims over 16 years of age
 Pedophile: adults whose primary sexual orientation is toward children
 Child molester: someone who has actually sexually molested children
  Intra-familial molester: someone who sexually abuses their own
biological children or children for whom they play a parental role
 Extra-familial molester: someone who sexually abuses children outside
their own family
 Rapist Typologies
 Massachusetts Treatment Center developed the Revised Rapist Typology,
Version 3
 Opportunistic type: impulsive, driven by situational factors, not
gratuitously violent (i.e. a burglar breaks into a home to steal but
impulsively rapes a female occupant
 Pervasively angry type: high level of anger, impulsive, use unnecessary
force, causes serious injury
 Sexual type: motivated by sexual fantasies
 Sadistic type: motivated by sexual fantasies but includes sadistic elements
 Vindictive type: anger toward women, goal to demean and degrade
victims
 Groth (1979) proposed there are three main types of rapists
 Anger rapists: use more force than necessary to obtain compliance;
engages in a variety of sexual acts to degrade victims (50% of rapists)
 Power rapists: seeks to establish dominance and control over victims;
force depends on the amount of submission by victim (40% of rapists)
 Sadistic rapists: obtains sexual gratification by hurting victims (5% of
rapists are sadistic rapists)
 Aboriginal Offenders
 We don’t know much about Aboriginal sexual offenders
 Even though 40% of the Aboriginal offender population in Canada has
committed a sexual offense
 Correctional Services Canada found that about 89% of Aboriginal sexual
offenders were under the influence when committing an offense
 The majority of victims are part of the Aboriginal community and known to the
offender
 Theories of Sexual Aggression
 Evolutionary Theory: i.e. rape as a mating strategy  reproductive advantage
for males
 Rape may have evolved as a behavioural strategy to facilitate reproduction
 It is effective because it allows males to have a reproductive advantage
 Integrated Model/Summary Model
 Marshall and Barbaree (1990)
 Biological factors, childhood experiences, sociocultural influences, and
situational events
 People typically learn to inhibit sexual aggression through the
development of positive attachments
 Sexual offenders fail to develop such self-control because of poor
upbringing
 Assessment and Treatment of Sexual Offenders
 Goal #1 – determine risk of reoffending
  Goal #2 – evaluate whether treatments work
 Treatment programs must address:
 Denial – offenders often deny or don’t take full responsibility (up to 70% of
offenders)
 “The victim wanted to have sex with me”
 “I was drunk, I didn’t know what I was doing”
 Cognitive distortions – deviant cognitions, values, or beliefs that are used to
justify or minimize sexual offenses
 Example: an incest child molester might say “It was better for her to have
her first sexual experience with me since I love her”
 Meta-analysis of 45 studies found that cognitive distortions predict
recidivism
 Empathy – some sexual offenders generally lack empathy (i.e. psychopaths)
 Many lack empathy toward their victims
 Cognitive distortions can play a role here too
 Empathy training: getting the offender to understand the impact of abuse
 Social skills – offenders generally lack social skills, and this lack may play a
contributing role (i.e. anger control, communication)
 Treatment programs may aim to improve such scales
 Substance abuse – offenders may use alcohol to facilitate offending by reducing
their inhibitions
 Offenders may be referred to substance-abuse programs
 Deviant sexual interests – can be assessed with penile phallometry
 Aversion therapy: deviant fantasies are paired with aversive stimuli (i.e.
smells) – classical conditioning
 Masturbatory satiation: offender is told to masturbate to non-deviant
stimuli
 Pharmacological intervention: drugs such as SSRIs given to reduce
sexual interest
 Effectiveness of Treatment
 Incarceration doesn’t seem to be a deterrent for sexual offenders
 Nunes et al. (2007) found no association between incarceration and
recidivism in a sample of 627 Canadian adult male offenders
 Hanson et al. (2002) meta-analysis of 42 studies
 Sexual recidivism was 12.3% of treated offenders and 16.8% for untreated
offenders
 Sexual offenders who refused treatment had the highest rate of recidivism
 Treatment was equally effective for adolescents and adults
 Institutional and community treatment were associated with reduced
recidivism
 CBT elements are important
 Olver et al. (2011) found that 27.6% of offenders drop out of treatment

LECTURE 10 ~ Homicidal Offenders

 What is homicide?
 When one person kills another
  Different types of homicide have legal definitions (intent)
 Different types of homicide identified by the victim (i.e. filicide)
 Colloquially, “murder” is homicide with intent
 Share of deaths from homicide, 1990 – 2017


 Comparing deaths due to homicide vs other types of deaths
 In Canada, <1% of deaths are due to homicide (not a big issue here)
 Countries such as South Africa, Brazil, and Mexico have a higher
proportion of deaths due to homicide
 In South Africa, deaths due to homicide have decreased
 In Mexico, deaths due to homicide are increasing
 Many factors are influencing these trends
 Homicide rates from firearms, 1990 to 2017


 <10 deaths per 100,000 due to firearms in Canada
 Many variables are involved in these trends
 Homicide rates due to firearms in Canada are very low
 Case fatality rate of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic


 Canada seems to be doing worse than the US? Why is this in the lecture um
 Number of deaths by cause, Canada, 2017
 
 Cancer and CVD are the leading causes in Canada
 544 cases of homicide in Canada in 2017
 Not a huge problem in Canada, but media coverage makes it seem like a
bigger issue


 Homicides and attempted homicides have been declining in Canada since the 90s
 Homicides represent less than 1% of all violent crimes in Canada
 In 2014, 83% of solved homicides were committed by someone known to the
victim
 34% family member, 37% acquaintance
 In 2014, 23% of Canadian homicide victims were aboriginal
 Aboriginal homicide rate is 6x higher than the non-Aboriginal homicide
rate
 32% of people accused of homicide are Aboriginal
 Homicide in Toronto
 Toronto is Canada’s most populated census metropolitan area
 i.e. An area having at least 100k residents with 50k or more living in the
core
 In 2018, 142 homicide victims in Toronto
 The most ever reported in Toronto since 1981 (data collection started in
1981)
 In 2017, 93 victims  roughly 53% increase in 2018
 1.51 per 100k in 2017 vs 2.26 per 100k in 2018
 Why the increase? According to StatsCan:
 Three unusual events
 Discovery of 8 serial homicide victims – Bruce McArthur given 8 life
sentences (eligible for parole at 91 years old)
 Van attack (10 homicide victims) – Alex Minassin (pleaded not guilty 
autism spectrum disorder; may have been motivated by radical misogyny),
reports that he followed the “incel” movement online
  Danforth shooting – Faisal Hussain killed 2 people, committed suicide
after shootout with police
 More homicides by strangers
 More solved case (police can confirm homicide)
 Homicidal Violence and Canadian Law: The Criminal Code
 These definitions aren’t perfect, but they’re a way of protecting society and
delivering justice
 There can be overlap between definitions
 First-degree murder: killing that is planned and deliberate (“cold blooded”
murder)
  Automatic life imprisonment, parole eligibility after 25 years
 Second-degree murder: deliberate killing carried out without planning
  Automatic life imprisonment, parole eligibility between 10-25 years
 Manslaughter: unintentional murder – “heat of passion” or criminal negligence
 i.e. Offender not fully cognizant of their actions (heat of passion)
 i.e. Drunk driving (criminal negligence)
 Infanticide: the intentional killing of infants
  Maximum of 5 years in prison, no minimum sentence
 Bimodal Classification of Homicide
 Kingsbury et al. (1997) proposed the following categories:
 Reactive (emotional) aggression
 Impulsive, unplanned, immediate, driven by negative emotions
 Occurs in response to some perceived provocation
 i.e. “Classic manslaughter”
 Predatory (instrumental) aggression
 Premeditated, calculated, and motivated by some goal (i.e. money, sadistic
fantasies)
 i.e. Mob “hits”, gang violence, Paul Bernardo
 Is this a useful framework?
 Daly and Wilson (1992)
 Reactive homicide – more common among relatives
 Instrumental homicide – more common among strangers
 Miethe and Drass (1999)
 Coded US study of 34,329 single-victim, single-offender homicides
 80% were reactive, 20% were instrumental
 Strangers – 55% of homicides, 80% of which were reactive
 Acquaintances – 29% of homicides, 93% of which were reactive
 Family/intimates – 17% of homicides, 52% of which were reactive
 Woodworth and Porter (2002)
 Used a continuum to code 125 male offenders (purely reactive,
reactive/instrumental, instrumental/reactive, purely instrumental)
 Purely reactive – 12.8%
 Reactive/instrumental – 23.2% (slightly more reactive)
 Instrumental/reactive – 20% (slightly more instrumental)
 Purely instrumental – 36%
 8% of the sample could not be coded
  Scores on the PCL-R were positively correlated with instrumentality
 Blais et al. (2002)
 Meta-analysis on psychopathy and violence using a faceted approach
 55 samples, N=8753
 Interpersonal features  instrumental violence
 Social deviance features  reactive violence
 Recall that PCL-R has 4 factors (interpersonal, affective, lifestyle,
antisocial)
 Different aspects of psychopathy are associated with different types of violence
 Types of Homicide
 Different types of homicide can be distinguished on the basis of the relationship
between the killer and the victim
 Some types of homicide are defined below
 These are forensic/research distinctions, they don’t necessarily translate
into sentences in the criminal code
 Filicide: the killing of children by the biological parents or step-parents
 Femicide: the killing of women
 Uxoricide: the killing of a wife by her husband (“uxor” = wife in Latin)
 Androcide: the killing of men
 Matricide: the killing of a husband by his wife
 Sexual homicides: killing that involves a sexual component
 Filicide
 Culturally sanctioned killing of children
 China and India, female children are more likely to be killed than male
children
 Between 2003 and 2013, 319 children and young (up to 17 years old) were killed
 Strangulation, suffocation, and drowning account for 27% of these
homicides
 Since 2003, 22% of infant victims killed the day they were born
 Motivation to kill may vary depending on the age of the victims
 Feelings of frustration – killing of children under 6 years old
 Concealment of the child – children less than 1 year old
 Arguments and revenge – youth between 12 and 17 years old
 Homicidal Mothers
 Maternal filicide can be classified into three broad categories
 Neonaticides: killing children within 24 hours of birth
 Young, unmarried, no history of mental illness
 Concealed pregnancies (fearing rejection or disapproval from their
families)
 Homicides committed by battering mothers
 Kill children impulsively (i.e. in response to child’s behaviour)
 High social and family stress (i.e. financial stress, marital stress)
 Homicides committed by mothers with mental illness (infanticide)
 Older and married
 More likely to have multiple victims
 More likely to be diagnosed with psychosis or depression
  More likely to commit suicide after murder
 Altruistic filicide: mother has delusional belief that killing their child is a
way to protect their child (“killing out of love”)
 Infanticide in the Criminal Code
 A female person commits infanticide when by willful act or omission she causes
the death of her newly-born child, if at the time of the act or omission she is not
fully recovered from the effects of giving birth to the child and by reason
thereof or of the effect of lactation consequent on the birth of the child her mind
is then disturbed
 Lesser sentence because of the motivations (mens rea, criminal intent)
 The mother needs help/treatment
 Childbirth and Mental Illness
 Some women experience mental illness after giving birth
 Biochemical, psychological, and social changes all play a role
 Up to 85% of women experience postpartum blues
 Crying, irritability, and anxiety (relatively minor)
 Usually dissipates in approximately 2 weeks
 Postpartum depression is experienced by 7% to 19% of women
 Clinical depression (onset after a few weeks of giving birth) – depressed
mood, loss of appetite, sleep problems, etc.
 Lasts several months
 Postpartum psychosis occurs in 1 or 2 of every 1000 births
 Severe mental illness  delusions, hallucinations, suicidal, and homicidal
thoughts
 Onset within first 3 months of giving birth
 Postpartum Psychosis: Andrea Yates
 Diagnosed with PPD and PPP – tried to commit suicide at least once before
killing her children
 June 20, 2001
 Drowned her 5 children in a bathtub to protect them from Satan
 On the morning of the murders, after her husband went to work she fed
her kids breakfast and drowned them one by one as their siblings ate
 Her firstborn (7 years old) Noah tried to run away when he realized he was
the last to die
 His mother told police how she chased him and drowned him facedown in
9 inches of cold water in the tub as his sister’s body floated next to him
 Found NCRMD in 2006
 Will live out the rest of her life at low-security mental health facility in Texas
 Yates Children Memorial Fund: a charity that raises awareness about
postpartum mental health issues to prevent tragedies
 Familicide
 The killing of a spouse and children, almost always committed by a man
 Wilson, Daly, and Daniele (1995): Two types of familicide killers
 Despondent non-hostile killer: depressed and worried about impending
disaster for his entire family, he kills them all and commits suicide
  Hostile accusatory killer: hostility toward wife (accuses infidelity and/or
intentions to leave), past history of violent acts
 Spousal Killers
 Uxoricide is more common than matricide
 Crawford and Gartner (1992) – in 43% of the cases examined, sexual jealousy or
anger over estrangement motivated uxoricide
 Sinha (2012) examined intimate-partner homicides between 2000 and 2010 in
Canada
 Found that escalations of arguments and sexual jealousy were the main
motives
 Jealousy was the motive more often when the female partner was killed
compared to when the male partner was killed, 24% vs 10%
 Risk Factors
 Wilson and Daly (1993) – recent or imminent departure of wife associated
with husband killing wife (not vise versa)
 Campbell et al. (2003) – offender having access to firearm, previous
threats with a weapon, estrangement, victim having left for another partner
 Other Characteristics
 Husbands often use close contact methods (i.e. beating or strangling),
excessive force or “overkill”
 High incidence of suicide after uxoricides
 Wives don’t often commit suicide after killing husbands
 Males don’t often commit suicide after killing strangers or
acquaintances
 Wives often kill their husbands out of fear for themselves or their children.
husband often the one who used or threatened violence first
 Sexual Homicides: killings that have a sexual component
 Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives by Ressler, Burgess, and Douglas (1988)
 Crime scene – one of the following must be present:
 Victim attire or lack of attire (sexual nature)
 Exposure of sexual parts of victim’s body
 Sexual positioning
 Insertion of foreign objects into victim’s body
 Evidence of sexual intercourse
 Evidence of substitute sexual activity (including sadism)
 Sexual Homicides in Canada
 Beauregard and Martinau (2013)’s descriptive analysis of 350 cases in
Canada from 1948 to 2010
 Offender Characteristics
 Average age: 28.4
 Race: White 66%, Aboriginal 28.8%
 Marital status: Single 57.2%, Married 27.5%, Separated/Divorced 15.2%
 Criminal conviction: Property 7.3%, Violent 1.7%, Sexual 0.4%
 Victim Characteristics
 Average age: 27.2
 Gender: Female 98.7%
  Race: White 62.8%, Aboriginal 33.1%, Asian 2%, Black 0.9%
 Alcoholic: 38%
 Drug addiction: 25.7%
 Homeless: 11%
 Prostitution: 17%
 Risk factors in combination can increase one’s risk of trafficking – also
relevant for risk of sexual homicide
 Crime Characteristics
 Offenders often (40.6%) used cons (i.e. fake emergency) to approach the
victim, surprise approach used much less often (7.1%)
 Beating and strangulation common (more than 40% of cases)
 Use of weapons (61% of cases)
 Overkill (43.1%)
 Vaginal intercourse (46.3%), anal intercourse (16.3%)
 Multiple Murderers
 Serial killers: the killing of at least 2 people at different points in time, killings
usually committed in different locations
 Mass murderers: the killing of multiple victims at a single location at a single
point in time
 Spree killers: the killing of 2 or more victims in extended episode occurring in
multiple locations
 Definitional confusion exists
 i.e. Hitmen (mafia contract killers) vs serial killers?
 i.e. Joseph Stalin/Mao Zedong/Adolf Hitler vs Columbine school killers
 Common Characteristics of Serial Killers (based on US data)
 Most are male (92.5% male, 7.5% female)
 Most are white (51.7%), African-American (40.6%)
 Most are driven by enjoyment
 Aamodt examined 3,688 serial killers and found that 40.1% appear to be
driven by enjoyment
 Victims are usually female (53.49%), white (67.33%), and young (average = 19
years old)
 These people tend to be more vulnerable
 Shooting most common cause of death (41.73%), strangulation (23.21%)
 Female serial killers  “black widows” (financial gain) or “angels of death”
(nurses who kill their patients)
 Male vs Female Serial Killers


 Types of Serial Killers
 Holmes and Holmes (1998) studied 110 case files and proposed the following
based on victim characteristics, and the method and location of murderers
  Visionary murderers: kill in response to voices or visions telling them to kill;
delusional or psychotic
 Mission-oriented murderers: targets people that they believe are undesirable
(i.e. homeless, prostitutes); ideologically driven?
 Hedonistic murderers: kills for gratification
 Lust  sexual gratification
 Thrill  fun
 Comfort  material or financial gain
 Power-oriented murderers: motivated by desire for dominance over victim
 Control-oriented goals
 Criticisms of Holmes and Holmes model
 Overlap among categories
 i.e. Lust, thrill, and power murders tend to have a controlled crime scene
(may not be helpful to make distinctions between these types of murders?)
 Not tested empirically when it was developed
 When tested, not supported
 Theories of Homicidal Aggression
 Evolutionary Theory and Gang Violence
 Homicide may be an evolutionary selected strategy for sexual competition
(Daly & Wilson, 1998)
 Seems particularly suited for examining homicide among young males
 Wilson and Daly (1985) “Young male syndrome” – examined homicide
cases from Detroit
 “Taste for risk” is a male characteristic (i.e. gambling, daredevilry)
 Homicide may confer status  not convicted or sentence lowered to
manslaughter; have status or “street cred” when they get out of prison
 Basically aggression  earning status  more resources (including sex)