Forensic Psychology Flashcards
Define crime
Crime is any act that violates the law & it’s harmful to society as a whole and is punished by the state
Two problems in defining crime
Cultural issues: what’s seen as crime, varies from culture to culture e.g. polygamy is illegal in UK but legal in other countries
Historical issues: definitions of crimes change over time e.g. homosexuality is still illegal in many countries but only made legal in UK in 1967
3 ways of measuring crime
1) Official statistics is the gov records of the total number of crimes reported to the police & recorded = provides a useful ‘snapshot’ of the crimes in specific areas = allows gov to develop crime prevention strategies and direct resources for areas most in need
2) Victim surveys are records of people’s experiences of crime over a specific period = British crime survey ask to document crimes where people have been victim in the past year = to compile figures, they randomly select households to take part which produces crime figures based on victim surveys = a separate survey was created for younger people to record their experiences
3) Offender surveys are individuals who volunteer details of the number and types of crimes they have committed
Define offender profiling and what are the two approaches
Offender profiling is a tool that helps investigators accurately predict and profile unknown criminals
Two approaches: top-down and bottom-up
Explain the top-down approach
FBI in America uses top-down due to being:
- qualitative =looks at overall picture and uses typologies
- based on police experience and case studies
- suitable for extreme crimes: murder, rape, ritualistic
Murderers/rapists are classified into one of two categories:
1) Organised criminal = shows evidence of planning, targets victim, socially competent, above average intelligence; tries to conceal evidence, restraints on victims
2) Disorganised criminal = shows little evidence of planning, leaves clues, socially incompetent, below average intelligence; no effort to conceal, minimal restraints on victims
Research: Bundy, the ‘organised killer’ was intelligent, attractive & socially competent who went on a killing spree after the breakdown of his relationship = his victims resembled his girlfriend with long hair parted in the middle
FBI gathered data from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers including Bundy = method used: to match the motive of the crime and the pre-existing template to the offender’s characteristics to classify them into organised or disorganised
Constructing an FBI profile:
1) Data assimilation = profiler reviews the evidence (crime scene photos, reports)
2) Crime scene classification = either organised or disorganised
3) Crime reconstruction = hypotheses of the sequence of events and victim’s behaviour
4) Profile generation = hypothesis related to the likely offender (demographic background, physical characteristics, behaviour)
Explain bottom-up approach
- Look at data then profiler
- Based on scientific theory and research
- Quantitative data
- Two types of bottom-up profiling: Investigative psychology & geographical profiling
Three parts to Investigative psychology:
Aim: to establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur or co-exist across crime scenes. In order to develop a statistical ‘database’ which acts as a baseline for comparison. Specific details of an offence or relate offences can be matched against the database to reveal important details about the offender, their history and background.
1) Interpersonal coherence: the way the offender behaves at the scene and looking out for correlations in people’s behaviour
2) Significance of time and place: a key variable that indications the geographical location of where an offender is living
3) Forensic awareness: certain behaviours found from the crime scene analysis may reveal awareness of particular police techniques which would help profiling e.g. Davis et al found that rapists who conceal fingerprints had a previous conviction for burglary
Geographical profiling:
Rosmo (1997) stated that an offender’s operational base of possible future offences are revealed by the geographical location of their previous crimes
Canter’s circle theory: proposes two models of offender behaviour: 1) The Marauder = disorganised offender works in close proximity to their home base
2) The Commuters = organised offender is likely to have travelled a distance away from their usual residence
-they work within a limited spatial mindset that creates imagined boundaries in which crimes are likely to be committed
Explain the biological explanation of offender behaviour: the atavistic form
Lombroso suggested criminals are ‘genetic throwbacks’ who are primitive sub-species who conform to rules of modern society - they have atavistic features:
- criminals have strong jaws, high cheekbones,extra toes/fingers/nipples
- murderers have bloodshot eyes,curly hair, long ears
- sexual deviants have glinting eyes, swollen fleshy lips
- fraudsters have thin reedy lips
- other non-physical traits: insensitivity to pain, use of criminal slang, tattoos, unemployed
Lombroso sees offenders lacking evolutionary development due to their untamed nature = they’re unable to adjust to demands of civilised society and inevitably turn to crime = he saw criminal behaviour as a natural tendency
Lombroso’s research: examined facial and cranial features of hundreds of Italian convicts both living and dead = proposed the atavistic form was associated with physical anomalies which are indicators of criminality = examined skulls of 383 dead criminals and 3839 living criminals = concluded 40% of criminal acts are due to atavistic characteristics
Explain biological explanations: genetic and neural
1) Genetic explanation: crime suggests that offenders inherit a gene or many genes that predispose them to criminal behaviour - twin studies evidence:
- they help to separate genes from the environment = Raine (1993) reviewed
