forensic psychology

Question 1

define crime

Answer 1

an act committed through violation of the law where the consequences of a conviction by a court is punishable where is the punishment is a serious imprisonment.

Question 2

official statistics

Answer 2

figures based on the numbers of crimes reported and recorded by the police which are often used by the government to inform government prevention strategies.

Question 3

victim survey

Answer 3

A questionnaire that asks a sample of people which crimes have been committed against them over a fixed period of time and whether they have reported it to the police .

Question 4

offender survey

Answer 4

a self-report measure that requires people to record the number and the types of crimes that have committed within a specific period.

Question 5

problems in defining the crime

Answer 5

Cultural issues in defining crime
crime is culture-bound one is considered a crime. For instance, in the uk have two wifes is illegal in the law of bigamy.

Historical issues affecting crime
a parent’s right to smack a child was made in 2004 and homosexuality was illegal until 1967 but crimes have judged in this modern age these things may be illegal in other countries unlike the uk.

Question 6

ways of measuring crime

Answer 6

official statics= are government records of the total number of crimes reported to police and recorded in official figures . These are published by the home office on an annual basis and are a useful snapshot of the number of crimes occurring within a specific time/ area. these help the government develop specific guidelines.

Question 7

victim surveys

Answer 7

record people’s experience of crime over a specific period. The crime survey for England and Wales asks people to document the crimes they have been a victim past year. In order to compile all the years, 50,000 households are randomly selected to take part in a survey and this enabled the office to create statics since 1982.

Question 8

offender surveys

Answer 8

involves volunteering details of the number and types of crimes they have committed. these tend to target groups of likely offenders based on risk factors like convinctions. The offender crime ran 2003-6 was the self-report survey of its England and Wales. they look at the evidence of the report offending, trends in violence and drugs.

Question 9

evalauation of crime

Answer 9

limitations
official statics have been as criticised as unreliable as they underestimate crime.
Some commentators suggest that many crimes go unreported victims or unrecorded by the victims or unrecorded by police that only around 25% of offences are included in official figures. The other 75% make up what criminologists referred as dark figure of crime. Crimes may not appear in the offcial statics for many reasons but one of these is police recording rules.
victim surveys
Strength and limitations
they include details of the crime that are not reported to the police. Victims have greater accuracy than official statics. 2006/7 official statics suggested a 2% decrease in crime but the British survey showed a 3% increase. Victim surveys rely respondents/ self report memories can be distorted.

Question 10

offender profiling

Answer 10

a behaviour and analytical tool that is intended to let the investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown characteristics.

Question 11

what is the top down approach

Answer 11

profilers start with a pre-established typology and work down in order to assign offenders to one of two categories based on witness accounts and evidence from the crime scene.

Question 12

organised offender

Answer 12

an offender who shows evidence of planning targets the victim and tends to be socially and sexually competent with higher than average intelligence.

Question 13

disorganised offender

Answer 13

an offender who shows little evidence of planning leaves clues and tends to be socially and sexually competent with lower average intelligence.

Question 14

top down approach and how it helps to solve crime

Answer 14

it started in the us due to FBI work in 1970s. FBI collected data gathered from a in depth interviewers with 36 sexually motivated killers like Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. Offender profilers who use this method will match what is known about crime and the offender. Murders and rapist are put into one category based upon evidence.
organised offender= the victim is targeted and will often reflect the fact that the killer or rapist has a ‘type’. They maintain a high degree of control during the crime and may operate with detached surgical precision.
disorganised offender= shows little evidence of planning in the crime in advance, spontanpoeous, spur of the moment. the crime appears to be impulsive nature of attack the body usually at the crime scene. the offender often has a history of sexual offences.

Question 15

evaluation

Answer 15

limitation=classification is too simplistic
Behaviours describing organised/disorganized offenders are not mutually exclusive. Godwin 2002 asks how would police investigators classify a killer with high intelligence who commits a crime a spontaneous murder. so there are more detailed typologies. Holmes suggest four type of serial killer visionary, mission, hedonistic and power. Keppel + Walter suggests we focus on the motivations of killers rather than types.
limitations= top- down profiling is best suited to particular types of crime that reveals important details about the suspect. Common offences do not lend themselves to profiling as the crime shows little about the offender. This means that the approach is limited in identifying a criminal and cannot be used to for all crimes.

Question 16

the bottom approach

Answer 16

profilers work up from evidence collected from the crime scene to develop hypotheses about the likely characteristics motivations and social background of the offender.

Question 17

investigative psychology

Answer 17

a form of bottom-up profiling that matches details from the crime scene with statistical analysis of typical offender behaviour patterns based on psychological theory.

Question 18

geographical psychology

Answer 18

a form of bottom up profiling based on the principle of spatial consistency: that an offender’s operational base and possible future offences by the geographical location of the previous crimes.

Question 19

david canter: investigative psychology

Answer 19

it is an attempt to apply statistical procedures alongside psychological theory to the analysis of the crime scene evidence.
the aim is to establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur or oc-exist across crimes therefore, create a statistical database which can be used in comparison.
specific details can show family histor, personal life
it would estabilish if a crime is linked or organised by the same person.
interpersonal coherence= the way the offender behaves in relation to the crime will be the norm for them. could tell you about the choice of victim/ behaviour and violence
significance of time and place is key= it will help idenify where the offender is living.

Question 20

geographical profiling

Answer 20

a form of bottom up profiling based on the principle of spatial consistency: that an offenders operational base and possible future offences are revealed by the geographical location of their other crimes.
taken up by kim Rossomo
uses crime mapping to mak inferences of the home/ operational base of an offender
most offenders will restrict their work to areas they are familiar with so understanding their spatial behaviour provides investiagators a sense of gravity.

Question 21

evaluation

Answer 21

investigative psychology limitation Canter and Heritage conducted a content anaylsis of 60 sexual assault cases. The data was examined using the statistical technique smallest space anaylsis.
use of impersonal language= the lack of reaction to victim. these characterists would lead to different patterns of individuals. it can lead to an understanding of how an offenders behaviour may change over a series of offences/ seeing if it is the same criminal.

Question 22

Lundrigran and canter

Answer 22

collected information from 120 murder cases involving serial killers in the usa.
smallest space anaylsis revealed spital consistency in the behaviour of the killers. the location of each body disposal site was in a different direction from site- creating a centre of gravity.
if the offender is based in the centre of a patter this would explain that spatial information is determining the base of the offender.

Question 23

atavistic form

Answer 23

a biological approach that explains criminal behaviour these are genetic throwbacks or primitive sub species ill suited to comfirming the role of society.