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Forensic Pyschology Flashcards

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1
Q

Top down approach:

A
  • Organised types of offender.
  • Disorganised type of offender
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2
Q

Profiling overview:

A
  • The idea you can make assumption about characteristics of an offender by analysing the offence they commit.
  • Crime is therefore nor random.
  • Offenders have a modus operandi, a distinctive way of committing crimes.
  • Profilers then make assumptions such as age,gender, occupation etc. of the offender.
  • It is rare and is only used for serious crimes such as murder and rape.
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3
Q

Origins of top down approach:

A
  • Originates with the FBI (1970’s)
  • Often used in America
  • Based on qualitative data
  • Way to solve bizarre and extreme crimes eg:murders and rape.
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4
Q

How top down approach works:

A
  • Starts with the big picture and then fills in the details.
  • Profilers start with pre-established typology
  • They then work downwards to assign an offender to one of the typologies.
  • Data is then entered into the data base - compared continually against other entries on the basis of certain aspects of the crime
  • The purpose is to detect signature aspects of the crime and similar patterns of ‘modus operandi’ (way of working).
  • The basic premises for offending profiling is that information left at the scene of a crime tells us about the type of offender.
  • This behaviour will be consistent with their everyday behaviour.
  • This helps to narrow down potential suspects.
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5
Q

Organised offender (Hazelwood and Douglas), characteristics of offence:

A
  • Planned
  • Shows self control
  • Lack evidence left behind
  • Targeted victim + tries to control the victim
  • Weapon hidden
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6
Q

Organised offender (Hazelwood and Douglas), characteristics of offender:

A
  • Above average IQ
  • Socially and sexually competent
  • Married/cohabiting
  • Anger or depression at the time of the offence
  • Skilled occupation
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7
Q

Organised offender (Hazelwood and Douglas), post offence behaviour:

A
  • Returns to the crime scene
  • Volunteers information
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8
Q

Unorganised offender (Hazelwood and Douglas), characteristics of offence:

A
  • Spontaneous
  • Likely to leave evidence at the scene
  • Victim randomly selected
  • Minimum use of contraint
  • Disorganised behaviour
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9
Q

Unorganised offender (Hazelwood and Douglas), characteristics of offender:

A
  • Lives alone + near the crime scene
  • Socially and sexually inadequate
  • Physically or sexually abused in childhood
  • Frightened/confused at time of offence
  • Low intelligence/no occupation
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10
Q

Unorganised offender (Hazelwood and Douglas), post offence behaviour:

A
  • Return to the crime scene to relive offence
  • Keep diary
  • Keeps news articles of the incident
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11
Q

Top down approach, data assimilation:

A

Investigators gather together information from multiple sources eg: crime scene photos/ police reports/ pathologists report

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12
Q

Top down approach, crime scene classification:

A

Profilers decide whether the crime scene represents an organised or unorganised offender.

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13
Q

Top down approach, crime reconstruction:

A

Hypothèse are generated about that happened during the crime eg: victime behaviour, crime sequence.

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14
Q

Top down approach, profile generation:

A

Profilers create a ‘sketch’ of the offender including demographics.

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15
Q

Research for Top-down approach:

A
  • FBI investigators initially carried out structured interviews with 36 serial sex murderers, like Ted Bundy and Charles Manson covering:
    • What led to offending
    • What early warning sings there were
    • What encouraged or inhibited offences
  • From interview responses, plus a thorough analysis of the details of their crimes by Behvaioural Science Unig they categorised offenders of serious crimes in to organised and disorganised offenders.
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16
Q

Top down approach advantages:

A
  • Copson (1995) 82% police officers interviewed said it was useful & 90% said they would use it again.
  • First systematic approach the FBI’s approach has been enormously influential.
  • Offender typologies are useful as they allow offences to linking crimes.
  • Adopted by agencies across the world.
  • Challenges stereotypes, Clarke and Morley found that contrary to stereotype of an inadequate loner, they were typically very average men, living in normal family circumstances, often intelligent and in skilled employment.
17
Q

Top down approach, limitations:

A
  • Assumes offenders are one type and stay stable over time.
  • Wilson et al (1997) suggest that neither assumption is correct: most offenders show both features
  • Sample in only 36 offenders and very rare types of offenders interviews.
  • Ainsworth points out that there have been few serious attempts to establish the validity of the FBIs offender types using scientifically verifiable methods.
18
Q

Bottom up approach:

A

Scientific and statistical predictions based on the evidence from it’s crime scene and other crimes.
^
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Start with the evidence from the crime scene.

19
Q

Bottom up approach, overview:

A
  • British approach
  • Developed by David Canter
  • Starts with small details and helps to create a bigger picture.
  • Doesn’t make assumptions, but relies on computer data bases.
  • Helps to show how and why variations in criminal behaviour occur.
  • More objective and reliable than Top Down approach.
  • Starts with raw data about the crime and makes it’s way up to a conclusion about the criminal.
  • Assumes that offenders leave a ‘psychological fingerprint’ of unique behaviour (offenders will have, constantly across a series of crimes).
  • Identified consistencies within the behaviour of offenders and identifiable differences between offenders.
20
Q

Geographical profiling:

A
  • Looks at patterns in the location and timing of offences to make judgements about links between crimes and suggestions about where offenders live and work.
  • People reveal themselves in the location they chose as their behaviour.
  • Concerned with where rather than who, doesn’t address the question of why offenders commit crimes, it just assumes that in any area there are a certain number of people who are motivated to do so.
  • Offenders are more likely to commit a crime near to where they live.
  • The locations of connected crimes are analysed to see where the crimes were committed and the relationships between the crime scene.
  • Two types of offenders identified by Canter and Larkin (1993):
    • Marauder: offender whose home is within the area the crimes were committed (most common).
    • Commuter: offender who travels to another area to commit a crime.
21
Q

Marauder:

A
  • Commits crime within a confined area
  • Bound by psychological barriers
  • Operates with his/her awareness space
  • Likely to an anchor point
22
Q

Commuter:

A
  • Commits crimes over large areas
  • Cross cultural and psychological boundaries
  • Involves complex hunting strategies
  • Hunting are lack of anchor point
  • Harder to geographically profile
23
Q

Investigative psychology:

A
  • Grew out of geographical profiling and uses established psychological theories and methods of analysis predict offender characteristics from offending behaviour.
  • Process whereby each crime is recorded on to a database,
  • Statistical analysis detects patterns of behaviour.
  • Details of each new crime are matched with this database in order to develop hypotheses about the likely characteristics of offender.
  • People are consistent on their behaviour and therefore will be links between how someone behaves when offending and behaviour in everyday life.
24
Q

Copson (1975),

A
  • Surveyed 48 UK police forces
  • 75% said profilers advice has been useful
  • Only 3% said it actually helped catch the correct offender
  • Profiling was only used in 75 cases
  • Profilers useful for narrowing down suspects
25
Q

Bottom up approach, advantages:

A
  • Copson stated that 75% found it useful at narrowing down suspects.
  • Rosmo said that Bottom-Up approach helps to target indicibles that otherwise might not have been identified.
  • More holistic that Top-Down approach
  • Increased validity
  • Statistical basis makes this more reliable
  • Can be applied to a wide range of offences
26
Q

Bottom up, limitations:

A
  • Canter and Larkin found in 45 sexual assaults, 91% were marauders, suggesting that this is too generic and may apply to too many people.
  • Simplifying an imagines circle is also problematic and may not be as scientific as suggested.
27
Q

Atavistic approach of offending behaviour, overview:

A
  • Proposed by Lombroso with the idea that the way people look means they will commit crimes.
  • He suggested there was a biological class of people more likely to commit a crime
  • Certain features weee associated with certain crimes.
28
Q

Atavistic approach, Lombroso, aim:

A

To identify distinguishing physical features among male criminals which set them apart as offenders.

29
Q

Atavistic approach, Lombroso, method:

A
  • Examined the features and measurements of nearly 400 criminals and skulls of 400 dead criminals no control group
30
Q

Atavistic approach, Lombroso, results:

A

40% of those examined had atavistic features.

31
Q

Atavistic approach, Lombroso, concluson:

A

These characteristics indicated that such people were more primitive in an evolutionary sense - such individuals weren’t responsible for their actions as it was done to their innate, inherited physiology.

32
Q

Atavistic approach, research support, Kurtzberg:

A
  • Found that prisoners behaviour had improved following facial surgery.
  • Those who had surgery, recidivism rate of 42%
  • Those who did not have surgery, recidivism rate of 70%
  • Those who had facial surgery tended to do better on release from prison than those who didn’t.
33
Q

Atavistic characteristics:

A
  • Sloping brow S lopping brow
  • Prominent jaw H igh cheekbones
  • High cheekbone R eally large jaw
  • Curly hair E ars are long
  • Long ears K (c)urly hair
  • Facial asymmetry
34
Q

Atavistic approach, evaluation:

A

+ First person to bring science and biology to study a crime.
+ Use of evidence to support theory
- Male only sample
- Stereotypes
- Delisi branded this theory racist as atavistic features are more commonly found in ethnicity minorities.
- Deterministic
- Unscientific approach
- Correlation, not causation
- Lack of control, only focused on those in prisons
- Goring found no difference in the facial characteristics between 3000 criminals and 3000 non criminals.

35
Q

Genetic explanation to offending:

A

One or more genes

Psychology (12 decks)

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