Forensic Psychology Level 3

This unit examines the origins and development of forensic psychology. You’ll learn about the professional bodies that Forensic Psychologists must be registered with to practise in the UK, as well as discover organisations that hire forensic psychologists, and identify relevant client groups. In addition, you’ll read about structuralism vs functionalism and what forensic psychologists do.

This unit explores the three domains of psychology: biological, psychological and social. You’ll look at closely at Psycho-biological theories such as societal or macro-level theories, community or locality theories, group and socialisation influence theories, and theories surrounding individuals. To aid your progress, you’ll consider the nature/nurture debate and a range of studies and hypothesis, such as twin, family and adoption studies. You’ll also look at the historical beginnings of psycho-biological research, body shape in relation to crime, as well as Hans Eysenck’s theory of Personality.

Moving on, you’ll learn how theories of offending and criminality can be broadly categorised into psycho-biological and psycho-social theories. You’ll understand that contemporary psychology generally accepts that the trajectory to offending behaviour is characterised by a combination of psycho-biological predispositions accompanied by psycho-social risk factors. You’ll also uncover a number of psycho-social risk factors that could lead to offending behaviour. In relation to this, you’ll read around Baumrind ‘Four types of parenting’, parent-child interactions, and characteristics of the family.

In this unit, you’ll understand that the perceived seriousness of a crime depends on a several factors. You learn how some crimes are serious sorely because of the cost in terms of human life, but for financial reasons too. You’ll also be able to explain the three categorises of serious offending: arson, violent, and sexual offending. In relation to this, you’ll read around delinquent offenders, the development of violent behaviour and whether every violent act can be categorised as a criminal act.

Throughout this unit, you’ll discover the basics of profiling, what is meant by an ‘offender profile’ and how this differs in real-life to the popular representation often delivered by the media or in periodicals or crime dramas. You’ll also learn that through university-based academic work that there are active offender profilers in the United Kingdom who are submerged in crime-centred research and statistics. Finally, you’ll be able to describe two key approaches to offender profiling.

Upon completing this final unit, you’ll gain knowledge of risk assessment relating to the effective functioning of the criminal justice system. You’ll learn how trained criminal justice practitioners identify risk-levels and likelihood of an offender re-offending, looking at areas of behaviour, history and experience. You’ll gain insight into existing risk assessments developed and researched using samples allowing for complex statistical investigation of the validity and reliability of such measures.