CRIMINAL PROFILING Flashcards
what is criminal profiling
comprises behavioural, cognitive, emotional, lifestyle, personality, demographic features of offender
-involves drawing inferences about offender based on crime scene, details of crime and other evidence
what are other names for criminal profiling
offender profiling
criminal personality profiling (psychiatrists, psychologists)
criminal investigative analysis (RCMP, OPP, QPP)
crime scene analysis (FBI)
what 5 reasons is criminal profiling used
- narrow down suspect pool
- set traps to flush criminal out
- determine whether to take threat seriously
- inform how interrogations should be proceed
- help prosecutors break down defendants during cross-examination
what are the 3 assumptions of criminal profiling
- behaviours during crime are reflected in crime scene
- offenders behave in stable way across crimes they commit
- there are stable relationships between how crimes are committed and their background characteristics
what is the homology assumption
what is the behavioural consistency hypothesis
what is the modus operandi
crime scene reflects personality
personality will not change
method of operation will be consistent
what information can be predicted via criminal profiling
- demographics (age, sex, race, educational history)
- person factors (level of intelligence, family background, psychosexual development, etc).
- experience (criminal history, post-offence behaviour)
in 1985, the FBI had __
violent criminal apprehension program (ViCAP)
-database of sexual assault, missing person and unidentified person cases used to link serial crimes
what is an example of canadian profiling
RCMP’s violent crime linkage analysis system (ViCLAS)
what is an offence-based profile
crime scene (profile details of offense)
-top down
-organized-disorganized typology
what is offender based profile
suspect based (profile the offender)
-bottom-up
clinical profiling __ whereas statistical profile __
incorporates intuition, knowledge, experience and training
utilizes descriptive and inferential statistical models derived from records of who committed similar crimes
what is a deductive (idiographic) profile
offender characteristics from this scene
-relies on logic, experience, insight, intuition
-can be applied to all crimes
-if logic is faulty, profile is faulty
what is inductive (nomothetic)
offender characteristics from other crimes
-relies on statistics
-more objective
-depends on having access to info about similar crimes
what is an example of an inductive approach
cluster analysis used to identify how sex offenders search for, select, approach and assault victims
-also cluster analysis to identify background characteristics
what can be said about behavioural evidence analysis
deductive
infer characteristics of offender from case facts
no reference made to other offenders
what is geographic profiling
analysis of geographical locations associated with the spatial movements of a single serial offender
for a geographic profile, a geoprofiler develops hypotheses about __
the approximate location of offenders residence, base of operations and where the next crime may occur
-often tied to psychological principles
offender based profiling derives from __
the systematic collection of behavioural, personality, cognitive and demographic data on previous offenders
-includes racial profiling
psychological profiling involves __
gathering information
-threat assessment/risk assessment
-often created for group offenders
what is the key weakness of offence-based (crime scene) profiling
often based on unvalidated assumptions and subject to investigator bias
lacks credit/scientific foundation
what is the key weakness of geographical profiling
not useful if moved out of area
does mot consider psychological characteristics
what is the key weakness of offender based (suspect based) profiling
can be illegal or biased, based on characteristics such as race, religion, ethnicity
what is the key weakness of psychological profiling
descriptive, may be speculative and dependent on unreliable source material
-may not be valid
what is the key weakness of psychological autopsy
not accepted guidelines on how to conduct, thus highly subject to not be admitted or refuted
what is the theoretical basis of disorganized-organized profile
relies on classic trait model of 60s, which argued that behaviours is due to stable, internal traits
-traits no longer believed to be only or primary driver of behaviour
what is the empirical support for underlying assumptions about profiling
- offenders behave in stable way across crimes they commit
-partial support - there are stable relationships between how crimes are committed and their background characteristics
self labelled profilers were better than comparison groups at predicting __, __, __ and __ but the differences are small
cognitive processes
physical attributes
offence behaviours
history/habits
what is a pseudoscience
beliefs or practices which are wrongly portrayed or believed to be based on scientific findings
the FBI originally defined criminal profiling as __
technique for predicting behavioural and personality characteristics of a perpetrator based upon an analysis of the crimes they have committed
