Forensic psychology Flashcards
Define offender profiling
A behavioural and analytical tool that’s intended to help investigators accurately predict the type of person likely to have committed the crime.
Outline the top-down approach to offender profiling
- Adopted by the FBI in the US and uses pre-determined assumptions about the behaviour at a crime scene to categorise offenders into organised and disorganised.
(The general profile comes first then the specific details)
- Additionally, it’s also known as crime scene analysis as 4 stages were put forward to generate an offender profile: data assimilation, crime classification, crime reconstruction and profile generation.
Explain the difference between organised and disorganised types of offenders (4)
Organised offenders show evidence of having planned the crime in advance. The victim is deliberately targeted and this suggests that the killer has a ‘type’ of victim they seek out. They tend to be competent as little evidence is left at the crime scene.
In contrast, disorganised offenders show no evidence of planning and so the crime scene tends to reflect the impulsive nature of the act. The victim is untargeted and body and clues are usually left at the crime scene.
Outline a weaknesses of the top down approach to offender profiling (5)
POINT - A weakness of the top down approach is suggested by the research carried out by Canter et al.
EXPLAIN - Canter disputed this approach because it many be too simplistic when identifying organised and disorganised offenders.
EVIDENCE - Canter found a significant higher number of disorganised crimes when testing the accuracy of the two types. This could mean that they’re easier to spot.
LINK - If so, this demonstrates that the criteria for identifying organised and disorganised crimes are insufficient.
COUNTER - However, the issue with this is that the research was only carried out in the US, and so doesn’t tell us about the types of offenders in other countries, which may differ in results.
Outline what is meant by geographical profiling
Information used from linked crimes scenes to identify the approximate base location or home of the offender. This is known as crime mapping.
Explain statistical analysis as a feature of investigative psychology
- Crime scene evidence is analysed to help establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur.
- This will form a statistical database of co-existing behaviours across crime scenes that can be used as a baseline of comparison for future crimes.
- Specific details of these future crimes are then matched against the database to reveal
important details about the offender as well identify whether crimes are linked.
Define ‘spatial consistency’
The idea that people commit crimes within a small area. This helps investigators identify the operational base of offenders.
Outline Canter and Larkin’s circle theory as a feature of geographical profiling
Suggests that the offender will produce a circle around the operational base, where the distribution of offences describes the offender in two ways:
- MARAUDER = Commits crimes close to their base or home.
- COMMUTER = Commits crimes at a distance away from their base or home.
- This reveals other important factors linked to the offender/offender, such as:
- Modes of transport
- Family setup
- Opportunistic or planned
- Approximate age
- Employment status
Outline the differential association theory
(uses the principles of the social learning theory)
- Sutherland’s psychological explanation for offending w hich proposes that individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for offending behaviour, through association and interaction with different people.
i.e. A person might associate with people who have very negative/ positive attitudes of crime.
- This depends on who the child will trust, value and spend time with the most.
- The scientific emphasis of this theory suggests that it’s possible to accurately predict the likelihood of whether a person will offend by knowing the frequency, density and duration of their exposure to deviant and non-deviant people.
Outline learned attitudes towards offending behaviour
- When a person is socialised into a group they will be exposed to their attitudes, values and principles and internalise them in the process.
- Sutherland argues that if the number of pro-criminal outweighs the number of anti-criminal attitudes, they will go to offend.
Outline learning of acts/techniques of offending behaviour
If a person is exposed to the technique of an offence and knows how to commit an act, they are more likely to adopt this behaviour
State the two factors that offending arises from
learned attitudes towards offending and learning of acts/techniques of offending
Outline the inadequate superego as a psychodynamic explanation of offending
Outline the theory of maternal deprivation as a psychodynamic explanation of offending
Outline a strength of the top down approach
POINT - It can be adapted to other kinds of crime, such as burglary.
EVIDENCE - Critics of top-down profiling have claimed that the technique only applies to a limited number of crimes, such as sexually-motivated murder. However, psychologist found that the implementation of it has led to an 85% increase in solved burglary cases in the US.
EXPLAIN - This was after adding two new categories: interpersonal and opportunistic.
LINK - Therefore, the findings shows that the approach has wider application than was originally assumed, increasing its generalisability.
