Forensics Flashcards
Offender profiling
Assumption of offender characteristics by analysing offence they commit
Modus operandi
Crime is not random
Top down approach
Profilers create pre existing categories of offender types
Organised vs disorganised
Profiler
Own experience or intuition to fit offender into a category, using crime scene evidence
Organised offender
Plan crime
Own weapons
Tidy crime scene
Hide body
High intelligence
Disorganised offender
Don’t plan crime
Leave weapon at crime scene
Messy crime scene
Below average intelligence
Bottom up approach
Statically analysed data collected at crime scene of choice of victim and location
Five factor model
Interpersonal coherence
Time and place significance
Criminal career
Criminal characteristics
Forensic awareness
Geographical profiling
Focus where offender is based NOT personal characteristics
Location of crime not random
Narrow down search area
Least effort principle
Close to home base
Circle hypothesis
Marauders do this
Crimes radiate out from home
Atavist form
Criminals are at a more primitive stage than non criminals, genetically.
Criminals born not made
Physical differences of a criminal
A symmetrical face
Heavy brow
Big ears
Large jaw
Thief upturned nose
Marauders hooked nose
Diathesis stress
Some genes expressed only due to interaction with environment
Neurotransmitters
Imbalance linked to offending
Neurological structure
Low Limbic system activity links to no empathy
Underdeveloped frontal cortex links to poor impulse control
Eugenic
Beliefs aiming to improve genetic quality of human population
Eysenck
Personality type due to nervous system inheritance
Arousal
How easily NS responds to stimulus influencing behaviour and innate offender behaviour
Extrovert
Attention seeking for stimulation
Neurotic
Easy to upset
overly anxious
and obsessive behaviour
Psychoticism
Emotionally cold and don’t feel empathy if psychotic
The criminal personality;
High Psychotic
High Extrovert
Levels of moral reasoning
KOHLBERG
we gain morality through development
Pre conventional level
Criminals stuck here
Concerned with how their actions effect them personally
Cognitive distortions
Failures of the mind lead to criminal behaviour
Hostile attribution bias
Inferences on peoples internal mental state is bias
Minimalisation
Denying actions causing harm
Sutherland
Criminality is a learnt response
Crime is cultural tradition
Socialisation
Learn norms and values from people around us
Differential association
Criminals socialise with others with deviant norms
Reinforced
Criminal behaviour reinforced by reward or approval from others
Offender technique
Passed on generationally or in peer groups
Superego explanation
Morality principle formed in phallic stage by identifying with same sex parent
Regulates behaviour by guilt and pride
Underdeveloped SE: weak due to no identification w/ SSP
Overdeveloped SE: too strong due to over identification so crime to satisfy punishing self
Deviant SE: normal identification but parent is a criminal so criminal behaviour imitated
Defence mechanism
Denial of serious crime
Displacement of anger into weaker target and
Rationalisation to justify actions
Attachment theory
Insecure attachment during infancy
IWM lacks trust leading to crime
Maternal deprivation = lack of empathy and affectionless psychopathy
Custodial sentencing
Holding criminal in prison/institute etc
Deterrence
Stop reoffending
Incapacitation
Protect society from criminals actions
Retribution
Provide victim sense of criminal paying for crime
Rehabilitation
Change behaviour by training or therapy
Institutionalisation
Prisoners adapt to prison environment and routine and then struggle after release
Deindividuation
Strip people of sense of identity leading to aggression
Recidivism
Offender reoffends after release due to institutionalisation or adapting pro criminal behaviour
Behaviour modification
Based on behaviourism
Desirable behaviour can be learnt
Operant conditioning
Principles of reinforcement and punishment applied in prison token economy system
Secondary reinforcers
Tokens exchanged for primary reinforcers
Negative punishment
Bad behaviour may result in tokens taken away
Anger management
Aggressive or emotional responses are cognitive processes controlled by CBT
Cognitive preparation
Offenders learn to assess own thoughts and triggers for irrational aggression
Skill acquisition
Control anger by relaxation techniques which improves communication to avoid conflict
Application practice
Role play scenarios to test anger management skills
