FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY content Flashcards
Offender profiling
- Characteristics of offender deduced from the characteristics of the offence and the particulars of the crime scene.
- AIM: narrow the field of enquiry & the list of likely suspects.
Top-down approach
- USA
- Result out FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit and their work carried out in the 1970’s
- They drew upon data gathered from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.
METHOD:
- Match what’s known about the crime and offender, to pre-existing template developed (based of the data of interviews conducted^^)
- Murderers or rapists are classified = organised or disorganised, on the basis of the evidence
- This informs subsequent police investigation.
Organised offender
- Evidence planning crime in advance
- Victim deliberately targeted & often reflective of the killer / rapist’s ‘type’.
- High control - almost detached surgical precision.
- Little evidence or clues left behind at scene.
- Tend to be above-average intelligence, in a skilled, professional occupation and are socially and sexually competent.
- Usually married and may even have children.
Disorganised offenders
- Little evidence of planning = suggesting spontaneous, spur of the moment act.
- Crime scene reflects impulsion e.g. the body’s usually still at the seen and very little control from the offender.
- Tend to have lower than average IQ, be in unskilled work or unemployed, and often have a history of sexual dysfunction and failed relationships.
- Tend to live alone, often relatively close to where the offence took place.
4 main stages to constructing an FBI profile
- Data assimilation
- Crime scene classification
- Crime reconstruction
- Profile generation
all end in ‘ion’
stage 1: data assimilation
- Information gathered from crime scene & other sources about exactly what happened.
- Look at photos of the scene, forensic evidence, police reports etc.
stage 2: Crime scene classification
Decision made on whether criminal appears tp be an organised or disorganised offender
stage 3: Crime reconstruction
- Hypotheses generated about what probably happened during the crime scene
> e.g. victim behaviour and the sequence of events.
stage 4: Profile generation
- A rough ‘sketch’ of the criminal is developed including social groups appearance and likely behavioural traits
Aim of bottom-up approach
Generate a picture of the offender through systematic analysis of evidence.
(e.g. likely characteristics, routine behaviour and social background)
Bottom-up approach (how is it done)
- UK
- PROFILE: ‘data driven’ = forms as the investigator engages in deeper and more rigorous scrutiny of the details of the offence.
- USES: ‘smallest space analysis’ = computer program that identifies correlations across patterns of behaviour.
COMPARISON WITH TOP-DOWN
- Unlike Top-down - doesn’t begin with fixed typologies.
- More grounded in psychological theory than Top-down.
A key psychologist in the bottom-up approach is…
David Canter
2 key elements within bottom-up approach:
- Investigative psychology
- Geographical profiling
BOTTOM-UP: Investigative psychology (general)
- AIM: establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur or co-occur across crime scenes.
- Apply’s statistical procedures (“smallest space analysis”) with psychological theory to analyse crime scene evidence.
- This develops a statistical ‘database’ = acts as a baseline for comparison.
- Specific details of an offence, or related offences, can then be matched against this database to reveal important details about the offender
> their personal history, family background, etc. - This also helps notice if a series of offences seem linked and so are likely to have been committed by the same person.
3 key variables in investigative psychology
- Interpersonal coherence = way an offender behaves at the scene and how they ‘interact’ with the victim, may reflect their behaviour in more everyday situations.
> e.g. an aggressive person > to commit an aggressive crime. - Time and place = geographic profiling may indicate where the offender is living.
- Forensic awareness = individuals who have been the subject of police interrogation before; their behaviour may denote how mindful they are of ‘covering their tracks’.
Geographical profiling
- info from locations of linked crimes to make inferences about likely home or operational base
- based on assumption = serial offenders restrict to geographical ares they’re familiar with.
- THEREFORE: understanding the spatial pattern of behaviour provides investigators with a ‘centre of gravity’ = likely to include offenders base (often in the middle)
- Also help made educated guesses abt where they’re likely to next strike (‘jeopardy surface’)
What can be used alongside geographical profiling
- Psychological theory - to hypothesis about how they’re thinking
- modus operandi
Modus Operandi
A distinct pattern or method of operation especially that indicates or suggests the work of a single criminal in more than one crime.
To help remember…
‘Modus’ = their mode (style) and most common (pattern)
‘Operandi’ = Operation
Jeopardy surface
- Height and colour probability codes
- superimposed onto a map of the area in which the serial crimes have been committed.
> Gives an indication of the likelihood of offender residence or place of work.
(Canter and Larkin)
Canter’s circle theory two models of offender behaviour:
- The marauder = operates in close proximity to home base.
2. The commuter = likely to have travelled a distance away from usual residence.
Canter’s circle theory
CAN REVEAL: usual residence, nature of offence + offender details
- Pattern of offending = likely to form a circle around their usual residence
(more offences = more obvious this is) - This spatial decision making =give insight on the nature of the offence,
> e.g. planned or opportunistic. - Can reveal details of the offenders: ‘mental maps’, mode of transport, employment status, approximate age, etc.
