Class Criminal Psychology and Punitive Severity

This UC intends to familiarize students with psychocriminal knowledge and the specific literature of Criminal Psychology, interconnecting with Criminology. Concomitantly, it imparts knowledge on the major constructs of operative Psychology in the field of criminality, its control devices, and on punitive severity.

Historical-epistemological framework.

Conceptualization, object and methods.

Relationship of Criminal Psychology with Criminal Law and Criminology.

Psychological acceptance of crime.

The decoding function of transgressive behaviors that belongs to Criminal Psychology.

Criminal Profiling: notion; operationalization; practical applications. Criminality and psychological approach: characters of the penalty.

Criminal Psychology and the subject's radioscopic view. Crime and exclusion: two ways?

Psychological autopsy: notion, legal framework and method.

Psychological approach to crime.

Joint attributions of criminologists and criminal psychologists in the judicial context: complementarity.

Punitive severity: notion, object and scope. Articulation with the psychologization of decisions.

Severity assessment: instruments and method of work. Application of instruments: adult and young populations.

Severity and social stratification; genre. The advantages of measuring penalties.

Practical cases. 

The expository method will be reconciled, preferably in theoretical classes, with the presentation of real cases in practical classes, encouraging students to debate. Using protocols already in force and informal agreements, study visits will be carried out both to criminal courts (fruit of a protocol with the Judicial Court of the District of Lisbon), and to educational centers and commissions for the protection of children and young people, with which there are two decades of collaboration, as well as with the Bar Association, with the Center for Judicial Studies and with law firms, with whom the ULHT maintains cooperation protocols. The assessment is divided into the work carried out, with participation in three initiatives promoted or supported by the course being mandatory, with the preparation of a report for each activity (50%) and the completion of a frequency (50%).

Almeida, F. (Coord.) Et Al. (2012). Profiling, Vitimologia e Ciências Forenses Lisboa: Pactor.

Durrant, R. (2013). An Introduction to Criminal Psychology. NY: Routledge.

Hollin, C. (2013). Psychology and Crime: An Introduction to Criminological Psychology. NY: Routledge.

Pinheiro, M. F. (Coord.) (2013). Ciências Forenses ao Serviço da Justiça Lisboa: Pactor.

Poiares, C. A. & Echauri, J. A. (2022). Violência e Justiça no século XXI: Desafios da Psicologia Forense. Apuro Cultural.

Sani, A., & Nunes, L. (Coord.) (2014) Crime, Justiça e Sociedade: Desafios emergentes e propostas multidisciplinares. Porto: CRIAP.