Forensic Psychology 🕵️♂️ Flashcards
A01 for defining & measuring crime
Problem with defining crime:
CULTURAL : what may be crime in one culture may not be in another
HISTORICAL: Legal system changes overtime
[WAYS OF MEASURING CRIME]
1) Office for national statistics
-crimes reported to police in official figures
-see crimes around the country
-develop crime prevention strategies
DARK FIGURE
-victims may not report crime
-under recorded by feds
2) VICTIM SURVEY
-50,000 households randomly chosen to report crime they’ve been victim for
-details of crime not reported to feds
3)OFFENDER SURVEY
-Individuals self report on crimes they’ve committed
-provides insight into how many ppl responsible for offences
-may be unreliable as offenders may conceal some of the more serious crimes
A03 for defining & measuring crime
ONS
-Unreliable as not consistent enough in showing crime data
-underestimate true extent of crime
-only 25% included in official stats
A01 for Top Down approach
Offender profiling- behavioural &analytical tool intended to help investigators predict profile offender
approach developed by FBI
CONSTRUCTING FBI PROFILE
1) Data assimilation- profiler reviews evidence
2) Crime scene classification- organised or disorganised
3) Crime reconstruction- sequence of events
4) Profile Generation- hypothesis related to likely offender
ORGANISED CRIMINAL
-planned
-destroy evidence
-Offender unknowns to victim
DISORGANISED CRIMINAL
-unplanned
-leaves evidence
-offender knows to victim
One Limitation of TDA
(organised and disorganised)
-Too simplistic
-any n.o of combination can occur in crime scene
-Godwin questions how someone with high intelligence commits spontaneous murder & leaving body at crime scene would be classified
-Holmes suggest there are 4 types of serial killers
-This is an issue because killer may not fit into one of the two types
Strength of TDA profiling
Can be adapted to other types of crime
-Critics of TD profiling have claimed technique applies to limited number of crimes e.g sexual
-However a researcher reports that TD profiling has been applied to burgualry
-Leads to 85% rise in solved cases
-suggest TD profiling has wider application
A01 for Bottom up approach
-Aims to build picture of offender
[How does it work]
-David Canter made offender profiling more scientific
-smallest space analysis contains data about many crime scenes
[Geographical Profiling]
-ppl consistent in crime are consistent in location
-psychologist use crime mapping to link locations of various crimes
-Marauder: operate in close proximity to close base
-Commuter- ppl who travel a distance to usual residence
Strength of BUA
-research support for investigative psychology
-Canter conducted content analysis of 66 sexual assault cases
-found each individual displayed characteristic pattern of such behvs
-This can help establish whether two or more offences committed by same person
-real life evidence
Limitation of BUA
Geographical profiling
-It is not a sufficient method alone
-e.g in cases of GP it’s often reliant on police data lead to inaccuracy
-crime data are not accurate & vary
-This is a weakness as it suggest GP as a method becomes over reliant on potential inaccurate data
-leads to incorrect profile generation
A01 for Biological Explanation
Lombrosso
-stated that offenders possessed similar characteristics to lower primates
-Offenders lack evolutionary development
[Characteristic of offender]
-prominent jaw. -Dark skin -extra toes
-Fraudsters : thin lips
-Murderers :Curly hair
[Lombrosso Research]
-used PM examinations of criminals & studies faces
-made measurements of skills
-examined 50,000 bodies
-Found 40% of criminal acts carried out by atavistic characteristics
Strength of Historical/ atiavistic approach
-Lombrosso has been praised for his contributions to criminology
-shifted crime research towards a scientific and credible realm
-Lombrosso led to onset of offender profiling
-as he stated particular type of ppls likely to commit particular crimes
Limitation of Lombrosso atiavistic form
-Contradictory evidence
-Goring investigated if there were any physical or mental abnormalities amongst criminals
-compared 3000 crims to 3000 non
-Found no evidence of offenders having unusual facial and cranium characteristics
-however found that crims have lower average intelligence
A01 for biological explanation
[Twin Studies]
-one twin in each pair spent time in prison
-Found 10 of the MZ twins but only 2 of DZ twins has a co twin who spent time in prison
-suggest genetic factors may take a part
[NEURAL EXPLANATIONS]
-evidence that there are neural differences in brains of criminals & non criminals
PREFRONTAL CORTEX
-Raine conducted studies of antisocial personality disorder in the brain
-found brain imaging studies demonstrating individuals with APD have reduced activity in PFC
LIMITATION OF TWIN STUDIES
-Issues with sample
-twin studies by lange were poorly controlled
-judgements based on appearance rather than DNA testing
-shows how classification may be inaccurate
-Leading the theory that genetic similarity increases chance of criminal behv
FURTHERMORE
twins are small sample
cannot represent rest of population
TWINS REARED IN SAME ENVIRONMENT
difficuilt to separate genetics from environment
STRENGTH OF NEURAL EXPLANATIONS
-support for the link between crime & frontal lobe
-landed viewed evidence of frontal lobe damage & antisocial beh
-ppl with damage tended to show impulsive behv & inability to learn from mistakes
-Frontal lobe associated with planning behv
-supports ideas that brain damage may play impact in offending behv
One limitation of Neural Explanations
One limitation of neural explanation is that it is reductionist as the link between neural differences & APD is more complex than explained. Farrington et al conducted a studied a group of adult males who scored high on psychopathy. T He found that these individuals had experienced various risic factors during childhood. For example being raised by convicted parents & being physically neglected. This auld be because early childhood experiences caused APA 8 also some of the neural differences associated with it may be due to trauma.
