FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY: Bottom Up Approach Flashcards
What is the Bottom Up Approach?
Profilers look at the evidence from the crime and use these to develop likely hypotheses of what the offender is like using their knowledge of psychological theories.
Information of Bottom Up Approach
- UK method that used objective evidence to predict things about the criminal rather than using subjective methods like the FBI
- Developed by Canter, who was hired to catch the Railway Rapist
What are the Five Stages to Canter’s Model?
- Interpersonal Coherence
- Time and Place
- Criminal Characteristics
- Criminal Career
- Forensic Awareness
Interpersonal Coherence stage to the model
Consistency between the way offenders interact with their victims and with others in their everyday lives
Time and Place stage to the model
The time and location of an offender’s crime will communicate something about their own place of residence /employment
Criminal Characteristic stage to the model
Characteristics about the offender can help to classify them, which helps the police investigation
Criminal Career stage to the model
Crimes tend to be committed in similar fashion by offenders and can provide indication of how their criminal activity will develop
Forensic Awareness stage to the model
offenders who show an understanding of a police investigation are likely to have had previous encounters with the criminal justice system.
What is Small Space Analysis?
Statistical technique developed by Canter. Data about many crime scenes and offender characteristics are correlated so the most common connections can be identified. Three underlying themes:
- Instrumental opportunistic
- Instrumental Cognitive
- Expressive Impulsive
What is Geographical Profiling?
Concerned with where rather than who. Analyses the locations of a connected series of crime and considers where the crimes were committed, the spatial relationship between different crime scenes and how they might relate to a person’s place of residence
What is Circle Theory?
Canter & Larkin (1993): if crimes that are similar in nature are plotted on a map it may be possible to join the plot points together to form a circle. Criminal’s base would be in the centre. There are marauders who’s base is within the geographical area of the crimes but there are commuters who travel to another area.
What is Criminal Geographic Targeting?
Rossmo: Rossmo’s formula produces a three dimensional map displaying spatial data related to time, distance and movement to and from crime scenes. This map is called a jeopardy surface. Different colours indicate likely closeness to residence.
