The psychology of crime and delinquency explains offenders' social and environmental constructs that accentuate their susceptibility to engage in criminal activities. According to several forensic psychology theories above, individuals tend to conduct crimes because of their predisposed environments, their inherent traits, or learned behaviors from childhood upbringing. Various psychologists have recreated crime and delinquency psychology to decipher enablers of evil behavior in society, which can be evaluated using different validity and reliability constructs.
Example of Research: The Stanford Prison Experiment
In August 1971, Phillip Zimbardo of Stanford University sought to prove crime and delinquency forensic psychology by creating a mock prison experiment. Zimbardo recruited 12 "prisoners," and 12 pretend prison officers to complete his assignment, which aimed to investigate the environmental effects of inducing criminal behavior in prison systems in the United States. The guards were ordered to de-individuate the prisoners by referring to them using their numbers instead of names, instilling fear in them, and creating a sense of helplessness in the latter ( Vsauce, 2018) . Similarly, individuals who acted as prisoners were stripped of their identity by being arrested like usual crime suspects, being forced to wear demeaning prison clothes, and being locked in a basement.
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Zimbardo's environment enabled the subsequent prisoner and prison officer behaviors significantly: correctional officers became violent, frequently harassing the mock prisoners by physical assault, denying them food, forcing the latter to sleep on the floor, and locking them in dark closets if they revolted. Similarly, prisoners responded as expected by passively accepting the harsh treatment they were subjected to. In the end, Zimbardo concluded that prison officers tend to behave in criminal ways because their environments accorded them perceived power even when they were aware of the illegality of their actions.
Reliability and Validity
The reliability of any research is based on its ability to produce expected outcomes. In contrast, the validity of a study is the extent to which it measures variables as anticipated by the researcher. The Stanford Prison Experiment had various types of validity and reliability; for instance, internal consistency reliability was manifested by the test embodying Zimbardo's specifications to the prison officers upon recruitment, while the equivalent-forms reliability was shown by the perfect cruel behavior of the guards and meekness of prisoners as Zimbardo expected ( Stangor, 2015) . Similarly, the SPE embodied content validity by covering all of Zimbardo's planned measures, while the correlation validity was evidenced by the experiment's evaluation of prisoner and prison officers' behavior as the main expected outcomes of the experiment. Finally, SPE's concurrent validity was shown by the measuring of prisoners' and guards' behavior simultaneously, while the study's construct validity is displayed by its successful measure of behavior in prisons, as Zimbardo anticipated.
An Explanation for Accurate Validity and Reliability
The experiment's validity and reliability are highly accurate because its outcomes were anticipated by Zimbardo and measured the intended constructs perfectly. Zimbardo had hoped the prisoners would own their de-individuated bodies, and they did. Similarly, the researcher expected the prison officers to be as cruel as those in typical prison systems in the United States, a factor that was well-evidenced by the experiment within six days ( Tiwari, 2020) . Therefore, Zimbardo successfully concluded that the prison environment promotes crime as was intended from the onset.
The difference made by Validity and Reliability
In the end, the Stanford Prison Experiment highly differentiated its reliability and validity constructs. Reliability was based on the outcome expected by Zimbardo when launching the experiment, which was achieved seamlessly. Similarly, the study's validity was shown by the prisoners' differentiated behaviors and the prison officers because of perceived power advanced by the prison environment. Therefore, the SPE had a high exhibit of validity and reliability.
References
Stangor, C. (2015). Research methods for the behavioral sciences (5th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.
Tiwari, A. (2020). A study of criminal behaviour (Causality & prevention of crime). International Journal of Advanced Research , 08 (04), 439-447. https://doi.org/10.21474/ijar01/10795
Vsauce. (2018, December 19). The Stanford Prison Experiment [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KND_bBDE8RQ&t=203s
