Criminal Psychology

Criminal Psychology

Delve into the world of Criminal Psychology with a flexible home learning course. On successful completion of this course you’ll have gained an overview of the psychology of criminal behaviour and the use of psychology in crime, its detection and prevention to help build your career!

Modules

Unit 1 Introduction

• Defining criminal psychology
• Scope of criminal psychology
• Roles of the criminal psychologist

Unit 2 Researching Criminal Behaviours

• The scientific method of psychological research
• Ethical considerations of psychological research
• Designing a research study/experiment:
• Focus of the research
• The hypothesis
• Data collection methods
• Analysing the data
• Reaching conclusions
• Reporting the results
• The usefulness of psychological research

Unit 3 How Criminal Psychology can be used to Understand Crime

• Factors that influence the incidence of criminal activity
• The major perspectives that try to explain causes of criminal behaviour:
• Biological/physiological theories
• Cognitions theories
• Behavioural theories
• Developmental theories

Unit 4 How Criminal Psychology can be used in Criminal Investigations

• Investigating a crime
• Witness reliability
• Factors that affect memory acquisition
• Factors that affect memory retention
• Factors that affect memory retrieval
• Interviewing witnesses
• Interviewing suspects
• Detecting lies
• Detecting false confessions
• Offender profiling
• Geographic profiling

Unit 5 How Criminal Psychology can be used in Prosecutions

• An overview of courtroom procedures
• How witnesses can affect a jury’s decision
• How child witnesses can affect a jury’s decision
• How expert witnesses can affect a jury’s decision
• How the judicial system can affect a jury’s decision
• How the juror reaches a decision
• Group decision making
• Group behaviour

Unit 6 How Criminal Psychology can be used with Convicted Criminals

• A Brief history of punishments
• The range of punishments
• Imprisonment
• Problems inmates encounter in prison
• Support available in prisons
• Alternatives to imprisonment
• Rehabilitating prisoners
• Offender behaviour programmes

Entry Requirements

There is no experience or previous qualifications required for enrolment on this course. It is available to all students, of all academic backgrounds.

All course fees, inclusive of all payment plans including our Premium Credit Limited option, must be settled before certification can be ordered.

*You will have access to the course for 12 months.

On successful completion of your course you will receive the learndirect Certificate of Completion of Training in Criminal Psychology.

Your course certificate will also state the number of CPD points/hours the course is eligible for.

View a sample of the certificate (opens in new window)

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