Forensic Pyschology Flashcards
What is a crime?
An act committed in violation of the law where the consequence of conviction by a court is punishment, especially where the punishment is serious one such as imprisonment.
What is offender profiling?
Behavioural and analytical tool that is intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminals.
What is the aim of offender profiling?
To narrow the field of enquiry and the list of key suspects.
Based on idea that characteristics of an offender can be worked out from the offence and details of the crime.
What methods do offender profiling consist of?
Vary but compiling the profile involves careful scrutiny of the crime scene and analysis of the evidence to generate a hypothesis about the characteristics of the offender.
What is the top-down approach?
Originated in America from FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit which used data from in-depth interviewed with 36 sexually motivated killers.
What is the top-down approach based on?
The idea that serious offenders have signature ways of working (modus operand) that generally correlates with a particular set of social and psychological characteristics.
What are offenders classified as in the top-down approach?
Based on evidence from the crime scene they are classified as organised or disorganised.
Based on pre-existing templates that the FBI developed and informs the following police investigation.
What is the top-down approach known as?
Typology approach.
What is an organised offender?
One who shows evidence of planning, targets the victim and tends to be socially and sexually competent with higher than average intelligence.
What is a disorganised offender?
One who shows little evidence in planning, leaves clues and tends to be socially and sexually incompetent with lower than average intelligence.
What are the 4 main stages of constructing a FBI profile?
Data Assimilation
Crime Scene Classification
Crime Reconstruction
Profile Generation
What is data assimilation?
Profiler reviews the evidence.
e.g. crime scene photographs, pathology reports etc
What is crime scene classfication?
Organised or disorganised
What is crime reconstruction?
Hypothesis in terms of sequence of events, behaviour of the victim etc.
What is profile generation?
Hypotheses related to the likely offender.
e.g. of demographic background, physical characteristic, behaviour etc.
