Forensic Psychology ⛓️

Question 1

What is crime?

Answer 1

A crime is any act or lack of acting that violates the law and results in punishment by the state.

This means that ‘crime’ is not simply behaviour that is deemed wrong but behaviour which has been identified as wrong by the law.
— It is also the case that not every violation of the law counts as a crime.
— Some breaches of contract, for example, are not punished by the state.

Question 2

How does culture influence crime?

Answer 2

Criminal behaviour varies from country to country depending on the law in those counties.
— Eg. In the UK it is illegal for a man to have more than one wife, whereas in other countries this is not the case (Saudi Arabia).
— Eg. Laws relating to drinking alcohol.

Laws within a country change over time, criminal behaviour is not constant.
— Eg. In the UK homosexuality was illegal until 1969 and remains illegal in some countries (Egypt).

Such observations have lead to the conclusion that the definition of crime is a social construct, related to the dominant morals and values of a particular culture at a particular time.

Question 3

What are the three different ways of measuring crime?

Answer 3

1. Official statistics
2. Victim surveys
3. Offender surveys

Question 4

What are Official Statistics and how do they measure crime?

Answer 4

In most countries, the government produces official crime statistics annually. In the UK, this has been produced by the Home Office since 1805 for England and Wales.
— This information is now based on any incident reported to the police or when the police observe or discover an offence.

FOR EXAMPLE: Data is given for any one year on the number of robberies, violent vs non-violent crimes, driving offences, offences experienced by children, sexual offences and so on. Home Office statistics also make historical comparisons to look at trends in crime.

In 2002, the National Crime Reporting Standard began recording any reported incident, whether or not it is reported as a crime.

Not all countries produce official statistics in the same way.
— Eg. In the USA statistics are produced by the FBI, whilst in Canada it is produced by the government agency, Statistics Canada.
— However, China and Burma are examples of countries that do not report annual statistics.

The United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institution (UNICR) monitor crime statistics around the world.

Question 5

What are ‘victim surveys’ and how do they measure crime?

Answer 5

An alternative approach to official statistics is to ask a sample of people to identify which crimes (reported or unreported) have been committed against them over a fixed period of time.

The crime survey for England and Wales (CSEW) was stated in the UK in 1982. Since 2001 the Crime Survey has been repeated every year and now involves a sample of about 50,000 households, interviewing those aged 16 years and over in the households.
— There is also a smaller sample of 10-15 year olds who are also involved.

The sample is selected randomly by the Royal Mail’s list of addresses. This should mean that all groups of people are represented.

Each person is interviewed using a fixed set of questions which relate to general attitudes (eg. ‘In your view what are the major causes of crime today?’) or more specific (‘During the last 12 months have you or anyone else now in your household had a car, van, motorcycle etc. stolen?’).
— All data is confidential.

Question 6

What are ‘offender surveys’ and how do they measure crime?

Answer 6

A third way to collect data about crime is to question offenders.

In England and Wales, the OJS has carried out annually between 2003 and 2006. The aim of the survey is to increase knowledge about young people and criminal behaviour.

The questions sought to produce information about the extent of offending, anti-social behaviour and drug use. The focus was on criminal behaviour and relevant contextual data.

Question 7

EVALUATION: official statistics

Answer 7

LIMITATION - NOT ALL CRIMES REPORTED
P: A limitation of using official statistics to measure crime is that victim surveys suggest they underrepresenting the number of crimes that take place in society.
E: Walker et al. (2006) found that only 42% of crimes reported in the British Crime Surveys were reported to the police.
E: Official statistics can therefore be said to lack validity, as they are not accurate representation of levels of crime in the UK.
C: However, statistics are often accurate in representing trends in crime, meaning that whilst they may not identify levels of crime in society, they can still be useful in identifying the most prevalent crimes at any given time.

Question 8

EVALUATION: victim surveys

Answer 8

P: A limitation of using victim surveys to measure crime is that there are methodological issues.
E: For example, victim surveys can be biased in terms of sampling, as not everyone will respond. In addition, individuals can only report five of any type of crime in year, with an estimated three million incident not being included as a result of cap (Farrell and Pease, 2007).
E: this is a problem because it limits the validity of victim surveys. By limiting the number of incidents that can be reported, some crimes may be severely underrepresented (eg. incidents of domestic violence).
L: Therefore, whilst victim surveys may be argued to be more representative than official statistics, they still do not provide an accurate picture of levels of crime in the UK.

Question 9

EVALUATION: offender surveys

Answer 9

P: One limitation of offender surveys is that it is a self-report measure.
E: This means there is a risk that respondents may lie, or exaggerate due to social desirability bias.
E: This is a problem as it limits the validity of findings, meaning that they may not be truly representative of crime in the UK.
C: However, research has suggested that participants were very honest in their responses to the OCJS (Hales et al. 2007), suggesting that offender surveys do have some usefulness in understanding offenders and their behaviour.

Question 10

What is the Top-Down Approach?

Answer 10

The top-down approach originates with the FBI in the US. This method was first developed as a way of trying to solve some of the most bizarre and extreme murder cases and designed to produce a profile of the most likely offender.

In contrast with the bottom-up approach, the top-down approach is regarded as a more intuitive application of a profiler’s prior knowledge.
— The profiler has a ‘feel’ for the kind of person who committed the crime.
— The bottom-up approach is regarded as more scientific and logical

Question 11

What is the process of the top-down approach?

Answer 11

1. Profiling Inputs
2. Decision Process Models
3. Crime Assessment
4. Criminal Profile
5. Crime Assessment
6. Apprehension

Question 12

What is meant by profiling inputs?

Answer 12

The data collected at this stage includes a description of the crime scene (including photographs and sketches), background information about the victim (employment, habits, relationships) and details of the crime itself (weapon, cause of death autopsy report).

All information, even if it appears trivial, should be included.
— Possible suspects should not be considered as this may bias the information collected.

Question 13

What is the decision process model?

Answer 13

The profiler starts to make decision about the data and organises it into meaningful patterns. Some of the following issues are considered:

> MURDER TYPE
— Mass: one incident with no significant time interval
— Spree: more than one person killed over a short period of time
— Serial: more than one person killed over an extended period of time

> TIME FACTORS
— Did it take a short or long time?
— Was it at night or during the day?

> LOCATION FACTORS
— Was the crime scene (eg. kidnapping) the same as the murder scene?

Question 14

What occurs at the first crime assessment?

Answer 14

Based on data collected, the crime is classified as organised or disorganised.
— This distinction presumes that there is a correspondence between offences and offenders.

> ORGANISED OFFENDER
+ Crime tends to be planned
+ Victim is specifically targeted
+ Body is often transported from the scene
+ Weapon is usually hidden
+ Violent fantasies may be acted out on the victim
— Such offenders are generally high in intelligence, socially and sexually competent, usually live with a partner, have a car in good working order and follow their crimes in the media.

> DISORGANISED OFFENDER
+ Tends to be an unplanned crime
+ Random selection of victim
+ Offender likely to engage very little with the victim
+ Sexual acts are performed after death on the body
— The crime scene is likely to contain many clues such as blood and semen from the offender, fingerprints and the weapon.

Question 15

What is the criminal profile stage?

Answer 15

A profile is now constructed of the offender which includes hypotheses about their likely background, habits and beliefs of the offender.

The description is used to work out a strategy for the investigation to help catch the offender.

It is important to anticipate how this person will respond to various investigative efforts, including how the offender might be interviewed if he was caught.

Question 16

What occurs at the second crime assessment?

Answer 16

A written report is given to the investigating agency (eg. the police) and persons matching the profile are evaluated.
— If new evidence is generated and/or no suspect is identified, the process goes back to step two (decision process model).

Question 17

What is the apprehension?

Answer 17

If a suspect is apprehended, the entire profile-generating process is reviewed to check that at each stage the conclusions made were legitimate (valid) and consider how the process may be revised for future cases.

Question 18

Explain how Ted Bundy can apply to the top-down process?

Answer 18

Ted Bundy is often given as an example of an organised type of offender.
— He was intelligent, had a degree in psychology and studied law
— He has several serious relationships and even married during the course of one of his trials.
— He confessed to murder it 30 women, but it may have been as many as 100.
— He was charismatic and often lured women in public places to more secluded spots where he murdered them violently.
— He left very little evidence at the crime scene, using his extensive knowledge of the law, and was very deliberate in his planning.
— He maintained an interest in the victims after their death, revisiting crime scenes as well as the decomposing bodies.

Question 19

EVALUATION: Top-Down Approach

Answer 19

LIMITATION- ACCURACY
P: The data on the usefulness of this approach can be questioned in terms of how usefulness is measured.
E: One way to measure usefulness is to consider, at the end of the case, how close the profile is to actual offender characteristics as, if they were close, this demonstrates how useful the method is.
E: However, a study by Alison et al. (2003) shows that such judgements are not reliable. Police officers were given a profile with one of two versions of the offender’s actual characteristics and found that over 50% of the officers as accurate, even though half of them were given a profile.
L: This therefore shows that profiling can lead to unreliable judgements of its own usefulness.

LIMITATION - BASIS IS FLAWED
P: The original data on which the organised/disorganised classification is based may be flawed.
E: The data came from interviews with 36 of the most dangerous and sexually motivated murders, including Ted Bundy and Charles Mason.
E: The data was used to identify the key characteristics that would help the police ‘read’ a crime scene. This in itself is dubious as such individuals (who are highly manipulative) are not likely to be the best source of reliable information. In addition, their approach may be quite different from more ‘typical’ offenders.
L: This suggests that the approach may not be reliable or generalisable. It is worth considering that the six-step process does allow for improvements to be made constantly.

LIMITATION - POTENTIAL HARM
P: Top-down profiling could mislead investigations
E: Snook et al. (2008) argue that profiling has no basis in any science or theory. In addition, courts have been known to regard it as ‘junk science’. The believability of profiles may be explained in terms of the Barnum effect, where ambitious descriptions can be made to fit any situation, as in the case of horoscopes, which is why they appear right.
E: There is a danger that if profiles are wrong, they may cause harm as they have the potential to mislead investigations. In fact, Jackson and Berkerian (1997) suggest smart offenders can read about how profiles are constructed and deliberately mislead profilers by providing misleading cues.
L: This means that police and courts must be careful when using profiles so as to not have the investigation influenced by them, and also suggests it may be better to keep profiling procedures confidential.

STRENGTH - TOP-DOWN IS USEFUL
P: One strength of the approach is that police who have used FBI methods believe that top-down approach to offender profiling is useful.
E: For example, Copson (1995) questioned 184 US police officers, of whom 82% said the technique was operationally useful and over 90% said they would use it again.
E: The technique may not result in actual identification of the offender but Scherer and Jarvis (2014) defend the use of this technique by looking at other potential contributions beyond the identification of the offender, such as offering a different perspective which may open up new avenues for investigation and prevent wrongful conviction.
L: All these potential benefits therefore support the usefulness of this approach in investigations.

Question 20

What is investigative psychology?

Answer 20

This approach was developed by David Canter, a psychologist who proposed that profiling can and should be based on psychological theory and research.

Question 21

What are the three main features of investigative psychology?

Answer 21

1. Interpersonal coherence
2. Forensic Awareness
3. Smallest Space Analysis

Question 22

What is ‘interpersonal coherence’ in investigative psychology?

Answer 22

People are consistent in their behaviour and therefore there will be links with elements of the crime and how people behave in everyday life.

at the same time, people’s behaviour changes over time and therefore, looking at the differences in crimes over a four-year period might offer further clues.

Question 23

What is ‘forensic awareness’ in investigative psychology?

Answer 23

Certain behaviours may reveal an awareness of particular police techniques and past experience.
— David et al. (1997) found that rapists who conceal fingerprints often had a previous conviction for burglary.

Question 24

What is ‘smallest space analysis’ in investigative psychology?

Answer 24

This is a statistical technique developed by Canter and was used in his research into murderers in the USA.

Data about many crime scenes and offender characteristics are correlated so that most common connections can be identified.
— Salfati and Canter (1999) analysed the co-occurrence of 48 crime scene and offender characteristics taken from 82 murder cases where the victim was a stranger. They were able to identify three underlying themes:

1. Instrumental opportunistic - refers to using murder to obtain something or accomplish a goal (instrumental) and that they took the easiest opportunities (opportunistic).
2. Instrumental cognitive - a particular concern about being detected and therefore more planned.
3. Expressive Impulsive - uncontrolled, in the heat of strong emotions, may feel provoked by the victim.