PSY378 End-of-Course Assessment January Semester 2025 SUSS : Forensic Psychology, Singapore

Please read this information before you start working on your ECA.
This ECA carries 50% of the course marks and is a compulsory component. It is to be done individually and not collaboratively with other students. You must submit it on time.

Submission

You are to submit the end-of-course assignment (ECA) in exactly the same manner as your tutormarked assignments (TMA), i.e., using Canvas. Submission in any other manner such as hardcopy or any other means will not be accepted. Ensure that you submit your ECA by the deadline. After the 12-hour grace period, 10% of the total ECA mark will be deducted for every 24-hour block or part thereof by which your submission is late. Submissions with more than 50 marks deducted will be awarded 0 marks. You are allowed multiple submissions to Turnitin before the deadline, after which only one submission is allowed, and only if you have not already previously submitted. If you fail to submit your ECA, you will be deemed to have withdrawn from the course.
You are reminded that electronic transmission is not always immediate. It is possible that network traffic may be particularly heavy on the cut-off date, and connections to the system cannot be guaranteed. Hence, you are advised to submit your work no later than the day before the cut-off date in order to make sure that the submission is accepted and in good time.
Once you have submitted your ECA, the status is displayed on the computer screen. You will receive a digital acknowledgement message. Please note that it is the digital time-stamp—and not the acknowledgement message—that indicates that you have submitted your ECA. To ensure a timely submission and to have your ECAs marked, you should therefore not jeopardise your course result by submitting your ECA at the last minute.
Do ensure that you have the correct files for submission. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have uploaded your file(s) completely and accurately to the correct submission link. All inaccurate submissions will be treated as a null submission. Any submission, extra files, missing appendices or corrections received separately after the submission of the ECA will not be considered in the grading of your ECA assignment.

Plagiarism and Collusion

The University takes a very serious view of plagiarism (passing off someone else’s ideas as your own; recycling of contents from your own earlier marked TMA from the same course or another course; or passing off AI-generated content as your own) and collusion (submitting an assignment which is the same or very similar to another student’s). Both are forms of cheating, and neither is acceptable in any form in a student’s work, including this ECA assignment.
Avoid plagiarism by giving yourself sufficient time to research and understand the material so that you can write up your assignment in your own words and ensure that you provide appropriate references when necessary. If AI is used, ensure that the AI tool is properly cited, and ensure that you write your response entirely using your own words. Even when paraphrased slightly, AIgenerated text can still be flagged as plagiarism. You can avoid collusion by ensuring that your submission is based on your own individual effort.
Penalties for plagiarism and collusion are severe. Serious cases will normally result in the student being referred to SUSS’s Student Disciplinary Group. For other cases, significant marking penalties or expulsion from the course may be imposed. For more information about the University’s policies on plagiarism and collusion, refer to the Student Handbook (Section 5.2, paragraph 1.3).

ECA Submission Guidelines

Please follow the submission instructions stated below:
Submit the ECA Cover Page together with your answers in a single MS Word File to the submission link entitled “ECA”.
File name should follow this convention: PSY378_ECA_UserID_Full Name
Additional instructions:
• To do well, you need to:
o Consider the context of the case, the relevant issues, and apply them
accordingly.
o The assignment requires you to integrate knowledge across the different Study Units and textbook chapters.
• You are required to do additional research and cite at least FIVE journal articles or book chapters of published books for this question.
• Reading widely and beyond the textbook and Study Guide will add depth to your answer, and references to relevant research studies and examples will attract more marks. There is an abundance of credible resources that you can access from the library and Library eResources. Do note that internet references such as Wikipedia,
SimplyPyschology.org, and online student papers are not counted as credible resources.
• You will need to cite all sources and provide complete references in APA7 style.
• When planning your essay, do remember that an analytical approach and a critical evaluation will gain more marks than a descriptive answer.

Answer ALL questions.

Question 1 (30 marks)

[Word limit = 800]
A home-made bomb wrapped in a paper bag went off in a public bus at 10 p.m. on a Monday evening. Five passengers sitting close to the bomb were seriously injured and taken to the hospital. Only the 51-year-old bus driver and a 32-year-old teacher sitting at the back of the bus escaped unscathed. The teacher had her headphones put on throughout her bus ride.
You are deployed as an investigation officer on-site. Demonstrate your understanding of forensic investigative interviewing and discuss how you would conduct a forensic interview on-site to obtain initial eyewitness accounts of the incident. Your aim is to obtain an accurate and sufficiently detailed account of the incident and your answer should therefore apply specifically to the scenario and not described in general terms.
You should write no more than 800 words.
(30 marks)

Question 2 (40 marks)

[Word limit = 800]
Jack is a 38-year-old male offender. He was charged and convicted of molesting his neighbour’s 11-year-old daughter and exposing her to pornographic materials over a period of one year. He was sentenced to a term of imprisonment at the Singapore Prison. This is the first time he got into trouble with the law.
Jack grew up in a middle-class family and has an older sister 10 years older than him. Throughout his childhood, he recalled major bouts of loneliness at home and in school. His parents worked in the service industry and had long working hours, and he was left at home alone much of the time. At school, he encountered difficulties in friendships with both males and females. Jack was small-built and was often teased by peers about his built. He could only recall having one friend in primary school, and the difficulty in making friends continued throughout his life. Jack made attempts to establish friendships, but always experienced rejection. Looking back, Jack suspected that he might have been depressed for a long period of time but was never diagnosed. He cited frequent suicidal ideations throughout his life but had never acted on them.
Academically, Jack was an average student and during his secondary school years, he discovered that he was good at carpentry. After graduating from polytechnic, he continued to hone his carpentry skills at a workshop. It was here that he got to know a male colleague who introduced him to online pornographic materials. They developed a friendship through sharing about their common interest in pornography. For once in his life, Jack has finally found a friend and in order to deepen this friendship, Jack frequently went to the websites that his colleague recommended to further conversations on this topic. Masturbating several times a day become a habit as he continued assessing the online materials daily. A year after working with the colleague, the colleague left the company and become uncontactable. Jack was devastated from the loss of the only friendship he had and increasingly turned to pornography on a daily basis to cope with the loss of friendship and the loneliness.
Jack was able to stay employed at the carpentry workshop for the last 10 years and had the financial means to purchase his own flat to move out of his parents’ place at 35 years old. He hoped to be in a relationship and set up profiles to chat with other peer-aged females but could never bring himself to meet them in person, for fear of being judged and rejected. Once when he was 32 years old, Jack met up with a date whom he had been communicating online for a few weeks. It was a mostly silent and awkward dinner where it ended with the date saying “you are not what you said you were”. Since then, he has not made attempts to meet up with peeraged females. Around the same time, he started to frequent paid sex services to have his sexual and emotional needs met. Besides coping with stress and negative emotions using sexual methods, Jack found that alcohol heightened the sexual pleasure during masturbation and sex. Hence, on a daily basis, he enjoyed drinking at least 5 cans of beer as this allowed him to achieve greater sexual arousal.
Jack got to know the victim through a chance encounter when he was displaying a few artistic items in his flat. The victim looked into his flat and was curious about the animal carvings that he displayed at home. Since then, they would greet each other along the common corridor. On one occasion, the victim walked past Jack’s flat when he was watching a pornographic video and she asked Jack what it was. From the victim’s curiosity, Jack perceived it as her willingness to find out more and invited her to watch those videos with him. It continued to escalate into molestation as Jack believed that her silence meant consent.
Based on the case information about Jack, analyse the significant psychosocial risk factors and examine how they could have culminated in Jack’s sexual offending behaviour. Apply relevant theories of rehabilitation and formulate an intervention plan for Jack based on the risk factors that you have identified. You intervention plan should cover both in care (i.e., when Jack is incarcerated) and aftercare (i.e., when Jack is release back to the community).
You should write no more than 800 words. (40 marks)

Question 3 (25 marks)

On 24 January 2024, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) jointly launched the Safe Clubbing Campaign 2024. The Police are concerned with the increase in the number of outrage of modesty cases and fights in and within the vicinity of public entertainment outlets. This year’s campaign – with its tagline of ‘Stay Safe and Drink Responsibly’ – will also have an added emphasis on responsible and moderate drinking by individuals and reminding friends to look out for one another.
To support these public education efforts, illustrate using a one-page A4 poster how you would educate university students in Singapore about responsible and moderate drinking. This poster will be displayed across all universities in Singapore.
The poster you design should be informed by relevant theoretical perspectives on alcohol abuse and crimes. Your poster should include the following:
• What is responsible drinking and binge drinking
• Focus on what alcohol does to the body and brain
• Link between binge drinking and crimes
• Provide practical suggestions that would encourage university students to engage in responsible drinking
• Include a strong message for a call to action for responsible drinking
Additional poster instructions:
• You are free to design your poster using any graphic design software (e.g., Canva) but not with the help of AI.
• You may design your poster in either portrait or landscape format.
• You may write in both point form statements and in full sentences.
• You are free to use graphical elements and colours to make your poster
visually appealing.
• Your poster should be tailored to the target audience.
• In-text citations should be included in your poster.
• References for the poster should be put together with the reference list for
• Upon completion of your poster, save the image as a JPG/PNG file and insert this image after your answer to Question 2. Your JPG/PNG should not exceed an A4 page.
• You are strongly encouraged to check that your inserted image is clear and visible.
(25 marks)

References                                                                                                    (5 marks)

The References lists the full reference of all sources cited or referred to in your assignment. Intext citations also need to be presented accurately in APA format.
There will be no awarding of 1, 2, or 3 marks.
5 marks: Perfect use of APA style. Demonstrates a thorough understanding of APA format and referencing conventions. A minimum of 5 academic references are cited.
4 marks: Near perfect use of APA style. Demonstrates a very good understanding of APA format and referencing conventions. A minimum of 5 academic references are cited.
0 marks: Fails to meet the above requirements.
English competency (Deduct up to 5 marks)
No marks are allocated to English competency, but a penalty of up to 5 marks will apply for errors.
1–2-mark penalty: Minor errors present, such as typos and spelling or punctuation mistakes.
3–5-mark penalty: Major errors or a fair number of minor errors present, such as spelling or punctuation mistakes, or use of colloquial and/or non-academic writing style