Forensics Flashcards
Offender profiling splits offenders into two groups
What are they
Organised and disorganised
Characteristics of an organised criminal
- Above average IQ
- Sexually and socially competent
- Evidence of planning for crime
- Steps taken to cover tracks
Characteristics of disorganised criminal
- Sexually and socially incompetent
- Crime scene shows no planning
- Lives alone and close to crime scene
- No covering of evidence
4 stages to offender profiling
What are they
1= Data assimilation (police reports) 2= Crime scene classification (organised or disorganised) 3= Crime reconstruction (victim behaviour) 4= Profile generation (demography)
What are demographics
The statistics of employment, births, deaths etc. Specific to an area
What type of approach is offender profiling
Top-down approach
What’s a top-down approach
When you split it into 2 categories. It’s not as detailed as bottom-up approach
Canter(2004) study on offender profiling
Method
- To test reliability of organised/disorganised typologies
- Content analysis of 100 cases of serial killers from USA.
- 3rd Crime each serial killer committed was analysed
Results of Canters study (3)
- Twice as many disorganised than organised crimes
- Few differences between organised and disorganised crimes- hard to designate which type each is
- Canters profile didn’t always match FBI’s
Conclusion of canters study
- Not reliable as there are 3 different results
- Not valid
Canters Evaluation of typology
- Not reliable, 3 different results
- Should be a mixed offender category
- Assumes human behaviour is consistent
Evaluation of Typology (offender profiling)
- Emphasis is on intuition, it’s not scientific.
Limitation, low in validity - Assumes behaviour is consistent. Limitation, if perpetrators carry out organised and disorganised crimes, police will look for 2 criminals
What type of approach is the investigative approach
Bottom up approach
What’s bottom up approach
More detailed approach
What does investigative approach consist of
- Consists of databases
- The 5 principles
What do databases do
They contain information. This information can be filtered to narrow pool of suspects
Certain principles assist profiling
What are the 5 principles
1) Interpersonal coherence
2) Significance of time and place
3) Criminal characteristics
4) Criminal career
5) Forensic awareness
What’s interpersonal coherence
Offenders style of interaction when dealing with people
What’s significance of time and place
Offender needs to feel in control so will choose a specific location in which they are comfortable
What’s criminal characteristics
Based on interviews with ex offenders, gives an idea of what type of crime they’re dealing with
What’s criminal career
Looking at careers of past offenders can assist in identifying likely offences for which an unknown perpetrator may have history
What’s forensic awareness
Offenders who have been in contact with police, will cover tracks in order to mislead investigators
Copson study for investigative profiling
Method, results, conclusion
- Method= Performed survey on detectives working with offender profiling
- Results= 82% of detectives thought profiling helped
- Conclusion= Profiling is helpful and not just for speed
Evaluation of investigative profiling
- Relies too heavily on statistics, however statistics are only likelihood’s not certainties
- Profiling is scientific method, typology is subjective (use intuition)
- Limitation, as perpetrator is already in database, therefore profiling isn’t really adding anything