Forensic Psychology Flashcards
Define crime
An act committed in violation of the laws of a particular society and has set punishments written into the law
What is deviance
Anything that breaks or causes offence to societal norms and values
- may be punished, although it would not be in a formal (lawful) context
What is social construction
The way we view crime as it depends on how it is seen from both a legal and normative viewpoint
What is offender profiling
An investigative tool used to identify the most likely suspects
Helps investigators predict and profile the characteristics of potential offenders
Analyses patterns that may be able to predict future offences and or victims
Who identified 3 main aims of OP
Holmes and Holmes
What were the three main aims of OP that Holmes and Holmes suggested
- Narrow the field of enquiry and the list of likely suspects
- Assist in investigative practices and provide advice to the police in their lines of enquiry
- Help solve and identify offenders by conducting;
- social and psychological assessments- basic demographic information about the offender (gender, race, age)
- psychological evaluation of belongings- identify any possible possessions that the offender may have that link them to the crime or victim (souvenirs, photos, belongings of the victims)
- interviewing suggestions and strategies- using different methods of interviewing to gain more information from an offender without an offender realising it
What are the two types of offender profiling
- Top-down approach USA
- Bottom-up approach UK
Describe Top-down offender profiling USA
- involves using knowledge and information from previous crimes and offenders, still at large
- AKA the typology approach- examining post-unsolved crimes first to match what is known about the current crime and potential offender to a pre-existing template
- developed by the FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit in the 1970s
- based on interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers, it was hypothesised that all murderers and rapists had similar characteristics and a template was born
- two types of offenders distiguished and op drawn up as part of a 4 stage process
What were the two groups offenders could be classified into?
Organised and disorganised based on any witness accounts and evidence collected from the crime scene
Organised offender- said to lead an ordered life and kill after some critical event. Actions are premediated and planned; they will likely bring weapons and restraints to the scene. They are likely to be of average to high intelligance and employed
Disorganised- more likely to have committed the crime in a moment of passion. There will be no evidence of premediation, and they are more likely to leave evidence such as blood, semen, murder weapon, etc behind. This type of offender is thought to be less socially competent and more likely to be unemployed
Why do fbi classify offenders into two groups
Informs the subsequent police investigation and lines of enquiry
Top-down approach ops are drawn up as part of a 4 stage process
- Data assimilation- profiler reviews evidence ie police reports, crime scene photograhs
- Crime scene classification- using the data collection in stage 1, OP decided whether the offender was organised or disorganised
- Crime reconstruction- predicts the sequence of events, how the crime might have taken place etc
- Profile generation- prediction made related to the most likely characterisitcs of the offender, looking at behavioural characterisitcs
Who and when was the TDOP revised by
Douglas 2006 with 6 stages
Stages of douglas top-down processs
- Profiling inputs
- Decision Process Models
- Crime assessment
- Crime profile
- Crime assessment
- Apprehension
Describe the bottom-up offender profiling
- works up from the evidence collected at the scene to develop a hypothesis about an offenders likely characteristics, motivations and social backgrounds
Describe bottom-up offender profiling
- works up from the evidence collected at the scene to develop a hypothesis about an offenders likely characteristics, motivations, and social background
-unlike TDOP, no assumptions are made about the offender before evidence collection - BUOP look for consistencies in an offenders behaviour during the crime
- it starts with the fine details and works up to form the bigger picture
- devised by David canter BUOP examines two main areas
What are the 2 main areas that BUOP examines
- Investigative psychology- Perp
- Geographical profiling- location
Describe the first area of david canters BUOP
- Investigative psychology
- establishes patterns of behaviour likely to occur in the next offence
3 main key areas
- interpersonal coherence- behaviour by the offender at the scene and towards the victim
- forensic awareness- does the offenders behaviour show they have previous knowledge of police interrogation or police practices
- smallest space analysis- crime scenes and offenders are examined as to whether they are instrumental (gain something), opportunistic (easiest opportunity) instrumental cognitive (planned) and expressive impulsive (uncontrolled)
Describe the second main area of BUOP
Geographical profiling- location
- identifies that crime location can reveal the type of offender
- analyses the locations of a series of crimes and whether the location shows a pattern
- most offenders have a spatial mindset within a imagined circle, and offenders are divided into;
Marauder- offenders home is within the area where crimes are committed
Commuter- offenders travel to another area to commit crimes, but this is a defined space that a circle can be imagined or drawn
CGT- computer system produces a 3D map of spatial data related to time, distance and movement known as jeopardy surfacepic in texbok
A03 pros and cons TDOP
+ temproal validity
- reductionist
- based on only 36 convcted mrders
A03 rpso and cons botton-up offender profling
What are the 4 psychological explanations of offending behaviour
- Eysencks theory of the criminal personality
- Cognitive explanations: level of moral reasoning and cognitive distortions, including hostile attribution bias and minimalisation
- Differential theory
- Psychodynamic explanations
Describe psychodynamic explanations in psychology
- originates from the work of freud
- focuses on the importance of early life, particularly in childhood
- childhood development takes places via the psychosexual stages
- monotropic mother-child relationship in early life is very important
- focuses on the role of the unconscious mind- desire and motivates that have control or access to
Examines the structure of the personality: - ID internalises instinctive impulses based on immediate gratification. Based on the pleasure principles
- EGO mediates between the conscious and the unconscious, between the id and superego. Based on the reality principle
- SUPEREGO self-critical conscience. Based on morality and the ideal self, which internalises same-sex role model
