This version of the course guide is provisional until the period for editing the new course guides ends.

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Criminal Psychology

Code: 100449 ECTS Credits: 6
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
2500257 Criminology FB 1

Contact

Name:
Elena Garrido Gaitán
Email:
elena.garrido@uab.cat

Teachers

Andrea Riera Campillo
Manuel Casado Gómez
Rocío Pina Ríos

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

Reading comprehension in English. 

The teaching of the subject will be taught taking into account the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals

Lectures will be in Catalan and seminars 11 and 12 will be held in Catalan and seminar 13 in Spanish.

 

Objectives and Contextualisation

The main goals of the subject assume some of the primary objectives of the degree, such as knowing the psychological basis of criminology and introducing the lexicon of the Criminal and Forensic Psychology. Specifically, students will have to understand the psychological processes and personality factors related to the criminological study from a psychological point of view.

Students will learn the the most important psychological processes and personality factors, in order to understand the criminal behaviour.


Competences

  • Ability to analyse and summarise.
  • Drawing up an academic text.
  • Properly using the legal, psychological, pedagogical and sociological language.
  • Students must demonstrate they comprehend the criminological theories.
  • Students must demonstrate they know the psychological and sociological concepts and foundations of criminology.
  • Using research methods in social sciences in order to diagnose criminality problems.
  • Working autonomously.
  • Working in teams and networking.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Ability to analyse and summarise.
  2. Applying the vocabulary of legal psychology.
  3. Drawing up an academic text.
  4. Effectively interpreting theoretical written texts in English.
  5. Laying the foundations for the psychological foundations of criminology.
  6. Using research methods in those psychological fields related with criminology.
  7. Working autonomously.
  8. Working in teams and networking.

Content

BASIC PSYCHOLOGY SECTION  
  1. Basis of Psychology Applied to the Criminal Context
  2. Models and Theories of Psychology applied in the criminological field
  3. Applications of Psychology to the Crime Study
  4. Relevance of the Psychological basis in the study of crime.
  5. Basic psychological principles (Motivation and Emotion, Thought and Language, Development and Learning)
 
PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSONALITY SECTION  
  1. Personality and clinical psychology in criminology. Introduction and basic concepts
  2. Dispositional, biological, learning and cognitivist perspectives on personality
  3. Clinical and psychopathological entities of criminological interest. 
  4. Assessment of personality, personality disorder and psychopathology
  5. Personality and criminality. Prevention and prediction of criminal behavior
  
NOTE: Students will be able to consult a calendar of sessions and a schedule with deluvery dates through the "Moodle" Virtual Campus at the beginning of the course.

Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Lectures 19.5 0.78 2, 5, 1
Seminar 19.5 0.78 2, 5, 4, 1, 8
Type: Supervised      
Assessment 5 0.2 2, 5, 4, 3, 1, 7, 8, 6
Type: Autonomous      
Deduction / Discussion Papers 30 1.2 5, 4, 3, 1, 7, 6
Group Paper (Final Paper) 25 1 2, 5, 4, 3, 1, 7, 8, 6
Group Workshop 30 1.2 2, 5, 4, 1, 7, 8, 6
Reading Documents and Writing papers 21 0.84 2, 5, 4, 3, 1, 7, 6

In lecture classes, students will receive theoretical and technical information. In the seminar sessions (practice), they will recieve tools to assume the theoretical concepts in a more applied way. Finally, under supervision, students will have to write the course essays.

There is a scheduled start time for the sessions, for which it is required punctuality. Therefore, the entry (without any kind of justification) is not accepted after the beginning of the lecture nor leaving before it finishes.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Deduction / discussion papers 30% 0 0 2, 5, 4, 3, 1, 7, 6
Exam 40% 0 0 2, 5, 4, 1, 7, 6
Group Paper (Final Paper) 30% 0 0 2, 5, 4, 3, 1, 7, 8, 6

The approach we propose aims to bring different marks on participation in the course in a continuous assessment of students. Therefore we will create discussion tasks in which we will be assessing the students. A continuous assessment, measured through practice, written comments and a final exam it will be held.

 ATTENDANCE

- Attendance is mandatory 100% (Grade regulations). There will be a control system. If a student misses more than the 80% of the lessons (lectures or seminars), he/she will not be assessed. 

- If a student does not attend at least 80% of the teaching activities cannot pass the course.

- Excused absences are accepted and the teacher will allow the student to recover the work done in class in the case of excused absence. An excused absence must be documented. Excused absences can only be derived from illness or similar situations.

- If the teaching activity cannot be performed by student strike or teachers, students shall be required to prepare the content on their own and will be assessed.

- Teachers can provide students with specific material to prepare the content that had been discussed in the lecture class. (Agreement of the  Professor-Students Committee, June 2012).

- Classes start on time. Entry into class is not allowed once it has started, nor can you leave before the scheduled time, provided there is not a justifiable reason.

Requirements to pass de course

To pass the course students will have pass with at least a mark of 5 each of the tasks evaluated:

 a) Essays on readings (30% of final mark)

This work will be requested during the semester and will focus on answering questions about two papers (Available on Moodle), and/or in the assessment of the seminar contents.

 b) 1 group essay (30% of final mark)

Students will analyze a case / conference proposed at the beginning of the course. According to this, students will develop some aspects throughout the semester.

 c) 1 final exam (40% of final mark)

Focused on the theoretical content taught in the course.

Students will be assessable as long as they have carried out a set of activities whose proportion is equivalent to a minimum of 2/3 of the subject's total grade (although we remember that each  evidence must be passed with a minimum of 5). If the value of the activities carried out does not reach this threshold (for example if they only deliver or present 1 paper or exam), the subject teacher may consider the student as not assessable.

 Resit

Those who fail in the continuous assessment, will have the chance to pass the course in the final weeks of the course. The maximum grade at the reassessment exam (in case any student had failed the first one) will be 7. There's no chane to assit to the resit in order to increase the final mark.

 Fraudulent conduct

If during an exam, any student is detected cheating from another student or from any other material, automatically will fail the course without the optionof resit at the end of the semester. In case of plagiarism in a paper, each casewill be analyzed, and the student could eventually fail the entire course without the option of resit. According to papers, in the event that a plagiarism behavior is detected, the paper will be failed (0) and the student will be notified. If the behavior persists, the course will be suspended without an option for resit.

Unique assessment

The assessment will consist of:

- Written exam (40% of the final mark). There will be an exam at the end of the course on the contents of the two blocks of the subject. During the course, the evaluable contents will be detailed.

- Practical exam (30% of the final mark). With questions about the papers that can be found on the campus

- Case analisys Paper and Presentation about the case (30% of the final grade)

To pass the course students will have pass with at least a mark of 5 each of the tasks evaluated

Universitat a l'abast

Because of their special status in this course, we begthe students of the Universitat a l'Abast to contact the head of the subjectat the beginning of the course to set targets for evaluation.


Bibliography

In the virtual platform, students will find the compulsory reading material for this course. For each topic, we will analyze texts from the following bibliographical sources.

Casal, G. (coord.) (2006). Psicología Forense: manual de técnicas y aplicaciones. Biblioteca Nueva.

Garrido, E; Masip, J. & Herrero, M.C. (coords.) (2006). Psicología Jurídica. Pearson Educación.

Garrido, V. (2005). ¿Qué es la psicología criminológica? Biblioteca Nueva

Rodríguez, C. & Ávila, A. (1999) Evaluación, psicopatología y tratamiento en Psicología Forense. Fundación Universidad.

Urra, J. (Comp.) (2002). Tratado de Psicología Forense. Siglo XXI.


Software

Moodle System


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(TE) Theory 1 Catalan second semester morning-mixed