Forensic psychology Flashcards
Offender profiling Top down approach
A behavioural and analytical tool to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown offenders
-Solve crimes
- Narrow list of likely suspects
-Proffesional profilers called to work alongside police especially during high profile murder cases
-Involves careful scrutiny of the crime scene and analysis of other evidence (eg witness reports) to generate a hypotheses about probable characteristics of the offender ( age background, occupation
The top down approach / The american approach
- From America in 1970s
-FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit interviewed 36 sexually motivated killers Ted Bundy and Charles Manson
-Then concluded that the data could be categorised into organised or disorganised crimes/ murders
-Each category had certrain characteristics that if, in a future situation the data from the crime scene matched some of the characteristics in one category, we could then predict other characteristics that would be likely - This can then be used to find the offender
-Offender profilers who use top down will collect data about a murder eg characteristics, crime scene and then decide on the category the data best fits
Organised and Disorganised types of offender
Serious offenders have Modus Operandi (Signature ‘ways of working’)
-Usually correlates with set of social and psychological characteristics that relate to the individual
Organised
- Show evidence of signs of planning in advance
-Victim is deliberately targeted thus suggesting killer has a ‘type’ of victim they seek out
-Offender has high degree of control during the crime
-Little evidence or clues left behind at scene
-Tend to have above IQ intelligence - Tend to be in a skilled, proffesional occupation
-Tend to be socially and sexually competent
-Usually married and even have children
Disorganised
- Little evidence of planning suggesing offences may be spontaneous acts
-Crime scene reflects implusive nature of attack
-Body usually still at the scene and shows little control on the part fo the offender
-Tend to have lower than average IQ
-Tend to be unemployed or in unskilled work - Often have history of sexual dysfunction and failed relationships
-Tend to live alone and live relatively close to crime scene
Constructing an FBI profile
1) Data assimilation - The profiler reviews the evidence (Crime scene photographs, Pathology reports, witness reports etc)
2) Crime scene classification (Organsied or disorganised)
3) Crime reconstruction - hypotheses in terms of sequence of events, behaviour of the victim etc
4) Profile generation - Hypotheses related to the likely offender eg demographic background, physical characteristics, behaviour etc
Top down approach strength (Organised)
-Research support from David Canter conudcted an analysis of 100 US murders each committed by a different serial killer to test the organised - disorganised typology
-He used the smallest space analysis - a statistical technique used to identify correlations across different samples of behaviour
- This assessed the co-occurence of 39 aspects of serial killings e.g torture or restraint, attempt to conceal body, cause of death
- This revealed there does seem to be a subset of features of many serial killings which matched the FBI’s typology for organised offenders
-This suggests a key component of the FBI typology has some validity
Top down approach counter (organised)
- Many studies suggest that the organised and disorganised types are not mutally exclusive
- There are a varity of combinations that occur at any given murder scene
-Godwin argues that in reality it is difficult to class killers as one or the other type - A killer may have multiple contrasting characteristics e.g high intelligence and sexual competence, but commit a spontaneous murder, leaving the body at the murder scene
-This suggests the organised- disorganised typology is more of a continuum
Top down approach strength
- Approach can be adpated to other kinds of crime such as burglary
-Critics claim it can only be for a limited number of crimes eg sexually motivated murder - Meketa reports it can be applied to burglary, leaing to an 85% rise in solved cases in 3 US states
- Detection method retains organised/disorganised but adds :
-Interpersonal (offender knows victim and steals something of significance)
-Opportunistic (inexperienced young offender ) - This suggests that top down profiling has wider applicaation than was originally assumed
Top down approach weakness
- Flawed evidence
-FBI profiling was developed through interviews with 36 murderers in the US - 25 Serial killers , 11 single or doubl murderers
-At the end 24 were classed as organised and 12, disorganised
-Canter argued the sample was poor
-FBI agents did not select random or large sample and did not have different types of offender
-No standard set of questions so each interview was different and not comparable
-This suggests that top profiling does not have a scientific basis
Top down personality evaluation
- Based on the principle of behavioural consistency (modus operandi)
-This should be seen across all their crime scenes - It should be therefore easy to catch the offender
- But Mishcel argues that people’s behaviour is more driven by the situation than personality
-Behavioural patterns seen at a crime scene tell us little about how that individual behaves in everyday life
Bottom up approach types
- Investigive psychology
-Geographical profiling
Bottom up approach
- Generate picture of the offender, their characteristics, routine behaviour and social behaviour through systematic analysis of evidence at the crime scene
-Comes from Britain , which does not begin with fixed typologies
-Data driven and emerges as the investigator engages in deeper and more rigourous scrutiny of the details of offence
-More grounded in psychological theory than top down approach
Investigative psychology
-An attempt to apply statistical procedures and psychological theory to the analysis of crime scene evidence
- To establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur or coexist across crime scenes
-This is in order to develop a statistical database which then acts as a baseline for comparison
-Specific details of an offence or related offences can then be matched against this database to reveal important details about the offender, their personal history, family background etc
- Can also determine whether a series of offences are comitted by the same person
- Includes concept of interpersonal coherence:
-The way an offender behaves at the scene, including how they interact with the victim may reflect their behaviour in more everyday situations
-Dwyer found that while some rapists want to mantain maximum control and humiliate their victims others are more apologetic
-This may tell the police something about how the offender relates the women more generally
-The significance of time and palce is a key variable as it may indicate where the offender is living
-Forensic awareness : Individuals who have been subject of polive interrogation before, thus their behaviour may denote how mindful they are of ‘covering their tracks’
Geographical profiling
-Crime mapping :Uses information about the location of linked crime scenes to make inferences about the likely home or operational base of the offender
-Based on principle of Spacial consistency :
-People commit crimes within a limited geographical space
- Can be used in conjunction with psychological theory to creat hypotheses about how the offender is thinking aswell as their modus operandi
-Centre of gravity: Offenders base is often in middle of spacial pattern - assuming serial offenders restrict their work to gegraphical areas they are familiar with
-AKA Canter’s circle theory : (&larker) : The pattern of offending forms a circle around the offender’s base
-Spacial decision making can give investagtive team insight into nature of offence e.g planned or opportunistic
-Also other factors such as ‘mental maps’ , mode of transport, emloyment status, age
Geographical profiling types of offenders
The marauder : Who operates in close proximity to their home base
The commuter: Who is likely to have travelled a distance away from their usual residence
Investigative psychology strength
-Evidence
-Canter and Heritage analysed 66 sexual assult cases by Smallest space analysis
-Many behaviours were identified as common in different samples of behaviour e.g impersonal language, lack of reaction to the victim
-Each individual showed characteristic pattern of such behaviour and this can help establish whether two or more offences were comitted by the same person i.e Case linkage
-This supports the basic principle of investigative psychology and bottom up approach that people are consistent in their behaviour
Investigative psychology strength counter
-Case linkage depends on the database and only consist of historical crimes which have been solved
-Solve means it is easy to link crimes together in the first place, making it a circular argument
-Suggests investigative psychology may tell us little about crimes that have few links between them and therefore remain unsolved
Geographical profiling strength
- Evidence
-Lundrigan and Canter collated information from 120 murder cases involving serial killers in the US
-Smallest space analysis revealed spacial consistency
-The location of each body disposal site created a Centre of Gravity
-Presumably because when offenders start from their home base, they may go in a different direction each time they dispose a body, but finally create a circular effect around the home base
-They found the offender’s base was always in the centre
-The effect was more noticable for marauders
-This supports the view that geographical information can be used to identify an offender
Geographical profiling limitation
-Geographical profiling may not be sufficient on its own
-As with investigative psychology, success of it relies on quality of data police can provide
-Recording of crime is not always accurate, can vary between police forces and 75% of crimes are not reported
-Relying on accurate geographical data , the utility is questioned
-Even if it is accurate, Ainsworth and other critics argue other factors are important to create a profile e.g timing of offence, age and experience of the offender
-This suggests that geographical information alone may not always lead to successful capture of an offender
Offender profiling strength and counter
Strength: Copson surveyed 48 police departments and the advice provided by the tool was judged to be ‘useful’ in 83% of cases, suggesting its validity as an investagitve tool
-Counter: Same study revealed only 3% lead to accurate identification of the offender
-Kocis also found that chemistry students produced more accurate offender profiles on a solved murder case than experienced senior detectives
Offender profiling Real life example weakness
The case of Rachel Nickell
-Stabbed 47 times and sexually assulted
-Profiler Paul Britton’s profile quickly targeted Colin Stagg for fitting it
-Britton persuaded the police to set a honey strap between undercover policewoman and Stagg to get him to confess to rachels murder
-When case came to court the only link for stagg and rachel was Brittons profile and expensive undercover police operation
-in 2008, following examination of ne forensic evidence, Robert Napper was convicted of her murder and was intially ruled out because he was several inches taller than the profile
Offender profiling real life strength
The Railway rapist
-Canter succesfully profiled John Duffy
-He carried 24 sexual attacks on women and 3 murders
-Canter analysed geographical information from crime scenes and combined with details of similar attacks in the past supplied by police , thus accurate profile created
-eg Lived in kilburn , martial artist, small and ugly (5’4 with acne
Top down real application
Ted Bundy
-Won trust of victims (socially competent)
-Attended Uni (at least average IQ)
-Psychiatrist says his first ex who broke up with him made him a murderer
-His victims resembled this ex
-Kilings followed a gruesome pattern : Rape then Beat to death
Biological approach : Atavistic form features
-Historical approach
-Biological approach
-Atavistic form
-Offender Types
-Lombroso’s research
Atavistic form : Historical approach
-Lombroso wrote a book which suggested criminals were ‘genetic throwbacks’:
-A primitive subspecies who were biologically different from non criminals
-Today the Atavistic form would be desrcibed as speculative and naiive
Atavstic form : A biological approach
-Offenders lacked evolutionary development
-Savage and untamed nature made it impossible to adjust to law
-They inevetiably turned to crime
-Saw offending behaviour as a natural tendecy
-Rooted in genes
-Offending behaviour was innate , therefore offender was not to blame
-His ideas were revolutionary
Atavistic form
-Offender subtype have physiological ‘markers’ that were linked to particular types of offence
-Biologically determined ‘atavistic’ characteristics of mainly face and head that make offenders different
-Cranial characteristics: Narrow, sloping brow, a strong prominent jaw, high cheekbones and facial asymmetry
Other markers: Dark skin, extra toes, nipples, fingers
Others: Insensitivy to pain, use of slang, tattoos, unemployment
Offender types: (Atavistic form)
Murderers: Bloodshot eyes, curly hair and long ears
Sexual deviants: Glinting eyes, swollen and fleshy lips, projecting ears
Fraudsters: Thin and ‘reedy’ lips
Lombroso’s research (Atavisic form)
- He examined the facial and cranial of hudreds of Italian convincts (dead and alive)
-Then concluded there was an atavistic form
-Then concluded these features were a key indicator of criminality
-383 dead convicts and 3839 living convicts
-Concluded 40% of criminal acts are comitted by people with atavistic characteristics
Atavistic form strength
-Lombroso’s work changed the face of the study of crime
-Lombroso hailed as ‘the father of modern crimonology’ and invented the term crimonology (Hollin)
-Hes also credited for shifting away crime research from moralistic discourse (offenders seen as wicked), towards more scientific position (Genetics to blame not individuals)
-Lombroso’s theory of different types of offender heralded the beggining of offender profiling
-This suggests that Lombroso made a major contribution to the science of crimonology
Atavsitic form counterpoint of strength
-Several critics including DeLisi do not think Lombrso’s legacy is entirely positive
-Many features he claimed to be atavistic (dark hair curly skin) are more found in African people
-Racist undertones in his work
-Sugested Africans wre more likely to be offenders
-Fitten 19th century eugenic attitudes
-Suggests some aspects of his theory were highly subjective than objective and influenced by racial prejudices at the time
Atavistic form weakness 1
-Evidence of atavism contradicting crime
-Goring compared 3000 offenders and 3000 non offenders to conclude there was no distinction of unusual and facial characteristics
- Only suggestive of lower IQ
-This challenges the idea that offenders can be physically distinguished from the rest of the population and therefore unlikely to be a subspecies
Atavistic weakness 2
-Methods of investigation were poorly controlled
-Did not have a control group of non offenders like Goring
-This would have controlled for confounding variables that might have explained higher crime rates in certain groups of people
-E.g Hay and Forrest found that there are links between crime and social conditions such as poverty and poor education
-This would explain why offenders were more likely to be unemployed
-Suggests Lombroso’s research does not meet modern scientific standards
Atavistic form weakness 3
-Facial and cranial differences may be due to poverty, poor diet
Eugenics movement
- Galton inspired by ‘survival of the fittest’
-People are not born equal
-Desirable traits e.g civility, high iq are found is some social groups : Genetically fit , more than others Genetically unfit
-Genetically unfit shouldbe prevented from breeding
Biological approach: Genetic explanations for offending behaviour
-Twin and adoption studies
-Candidate genes
-Diatheses stress model
Twin and adoption studies (Genetic explanations for offending behaviour)
-Christiansen studied over 3500 twin pairs to see concordance rates of offending behaviour:
-35% for MZ Male twins
-13% for DZ Male twins
-Lower rates for females
-All twins born 1880 and 1910 in a reigon in Denmark
-Data indicates not only behaviour is inherited but the underlying predisposing traits
-Crowe found that adopted children whose biological mum has a criminal record had a 50% risk of having one by 18 and 5% If mother doesnt have one
Candidate genes (Genetic explanations for offending behaviour)
-Tiihonen did a genetic analysis of 800 Finnish offenders
-Suggested genes MAOA and CDH13 are associated with violent crime
-MAOA regulates serotonin in brain and linked to agressive behaviour
-CDH13 linked to substance abuse and ADHD
-His anaysis found 5-10% of all severe violent crime in Finland is caused by MAOA and CDH13 genotypes
Diathesis Stress Model (Genetic explanations for offending behaviour)
-If genetics influence offending behaviour, it is likely to be partly moderated by affects of the environment
-Offending behaviour may come from the combination of genetic predisposition and biological or psychological trigger
-eg Raised in a dysfunctional environment or having criminal role models
Biological approach: Neural explanations for offending behaviour
-Prefrontal cortex
-Mirror Neurons
-Neural differences between offenders and non offenders
-Much of evidence included those with AntiSocial Personality Disorder (APD)
-APD associated with reduced emotions, lack of empathy and feeling for others, and many convicted offenders have it
Prefrontal cortex (Neural explanations for offending behaviour)
-Raine reported there are several dozen brain imaging studies demonstrating that individuals with antisocial personalities have reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex
-Prefrontal cortex regulates emotional behaviour
-Raine and colleagues found an 11% reduction in volume of grey matter in prefrontal cortex of people with APD than controls
Mirror neurons (Neural explanations for offending behaviour)
-Keysers found that ony when APD offenders were asked to emphasise (with a person depicted on film experiencing pain) did their empathy reaction (Controlled by mirror neurons in the brain) activate.
-This suggests APD individuals are not completely without empathy but may have a neural ‘switch’ that can turn on or off unlike normal brain which is permanately turned on
Twin studies (Genetic explanations for offending behaviour) Weakness
-False assumption of equal environments
-Shared environment assumption applied to MZ twins more than DZ twins
-MZ twins look more similar thus people and parents treat them more similarly, then effects their behaviour
-Therefore higher concordance rates for MZs in twin studies may simply be because they are treated much more similarly than DZ twins , not genes
Diathesis stress model (Genetic explanations for offending behaviour) Strength
-Mednick studied 13,000 Danish adoptees
-Convictions were 13.5% when neither biological or adoptive parents had convictios
-20% When a biological parent had convictions
-24.5% when both adoptive and biological parents had convictions
-This shows genetic inheritence is important but also environmental, supporting diathesis stress model of crime
Prefrontal cortex (Neural explanations for offending behaviour) Strength
-Kandel and Freed reviewed evidence of frontal lobe damage including prefrontal cortex and antisocial behaviour
-People with damage here showed impulsive behaviour, emotional instability, and inability to learn from mistakes
-The frontal lobe is associated with planning behaviour
-This suports the idea that brain damage may be a casual factor in offending behaviour
-Suppports the frontal lobe affects offending behaviour thus, prefrontal cortex
Neural explanations for offending behaviour weakness
-Link between neural differences and APD are complex
-Farrington studied a group of men who scored highly on APD
-These individuals eperienced various risk factors during childhood e.g raised by convicted parent, phsyically neglected
-It could be these experiences cause APD and the neural differences associated with it
-e.g Rauch states reduced activity in the frontal lobe due to trauma
-This suggests that neural differences, APD and offending is complex and there may be intervening variables that have an impact
Psychological explanations : Eysenck’s theory : 3 Categories
-Eyesnck noted behaviour could be represented along two dimensions
- E : Introversion - Extraversion
- N : Neuroticism - Stability
- (Later added) P: Psychoticism - Sociability
Biological basis of Eysenck’s theory
-Extraverts: underactive nervous system thus always seeking attnetion, more likely to have risky behaviour. Do not condition easily thus do not learn from mistakes
-Introverts :overaroused so do not seek attention
-Neurotics : High level of reactivity in sympathetic nervous system
Respond quick of threat in fight or flight
Tend to be nervous, jumpy, unpredictable behaviour
Psychotics: Higher levels of testosterone, unemotional and prone to agression (predicted less people )
Criminal personality components (Eysenck’s theory)
High E (extravert) , High N (neurotic) and High P (psychotics)
The role of socialisation (Eysenck’s theory)
-Personality is linked to offending behaviour via socialisation processes
- Devlopmentally immature and selfish concerns for immediate gratification
- Offenders are impatient
-Process of socialisation includes children being taught to become more able to delay gratification and become more socially orientated
-Eysenck believed those with high E and N scores had difficult to condition nervous systems
-Results in less likely to learn anxiety responses to antisocial impulses and then be more likely to act antisocially in situations where the opportunity presented itself
Measuring the criminal personality (Eysenck)
- Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ)
-Locates respondents along the E, N and P dimensions to determine their personality type
-Allowed Eysenck to conduct research relating personality variables to other behaviours eg criminality
Eysenck’s theory strength
-Research support
-Eysenck and Eysenck compared 2070 prisoner’s EPQ scores to 2422 controls
- On E,N and P
-All age groups sampled
-Prisoners had higher average scores
-Agrees with predictions that offender’s rate higher than average across the 3 dimensions Eysenck proposed
Eysenck’s theory Strength Counterpoint
-Farrington conducted meta-analysis of studies and reported that offenders score high on P but not E or N
-Also Kusner found inconsistent evidence of differences in EEG measures between introverts and extroverts which casts doubt on the psychological basis of his theory
-Central assumptions of the criminal personality have been challenged
Eysnck’s theory weakness
-Too simplistic
-Moffit delineated offending behaviour: Adolescence limited (only as adult)
- :Life course persistent (Continues into adulthood
-She argued personality traits alone were a poor predictor of how long offending behaviour would go on for (whether someone would be a career offender)
-Considered persistent offending behaviour to be because of a reciprocal process between individual personaltiy traits And environmental reactions
-This presents more complex picture than Eysenck suggested , The course of offending behaviour is determined by the interaction of personality and environment
