forensics - offender profiling

Question 1

what is offender profiling?

Answer 1

investigative tool employed by the police when investigating crime to narrow down the potential offenders.

Question 2

when and who developed the top down approach?

Answer 2

Developed in 1970s, US by the FBI

Question 3

how was top down approach developed?

Answer 3

Behavioral science unit gathered date from interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers.

Question 4

what is the top down approach also called?

Answer 4

typology

Question 5

what is the typology approach?

Answer 5

offender profilers will match what is known about offender/crime to pre-existing templates. There classified into either organized or disorganized

Question 6

what is a disorganised crime?

Answer 6

spontaneous, impulsive, low IQ, unskilled, live alone

Question 7

what is a organised crime?

Answer 7

planned, particular victim, controlled, ^ IQ, sexually + socially competent

Question 8

structure of FBI profiling

Answer 8

1) data assimilation
2) crime scene class
3) crime reconstruction
4) profile generation

Question 9

what are two examples of offender profiling?

Answer 9

the top-down approach
bottom-up approach

Question 10

what is the aim of the bottom up approach?

Answer 10

generate picture of the offender, likely characteristics, behavior and social background through systematic (empirical) analysis of the crime scenes

Question 11

what is the difference between top-down and bottum-up

Answer 11

doesnt begin with typologies it is data driven

Question 12

what does investigative psychology use to asses crime?

Answer 12

statistical analysis and psychological theories

Question 13

what are two forms of the bottum up approach

Answer 13

investigative psychology and geographical profiling

Question 14

what is interpersonal coherence?

Answer 14

this is the idea that is central to inveistigative psychology how an offender act with their victim may reflect their behaviour in everyday situations

Question 15

what is forensic awareness?

Answer 15

it is people who have been in crime before, their behaviour may show how well they are at covering their tracks

Question 16

what variables are key for investigative psychology?

Answer 16

interpersonal coherence
time and place
forensic awareness

Question 17

who first proposed geographical profiling?

Answer 17

kim rossmo

Question 18

what is the assumption in geographical mapping>?

Answer 18

that offender will restrict their crime to areas theyre familiar with and understadning this area will provide a CENTRA OF GRAVITY

Question 19

where is the offenders base usually?

Answer 19

in the middle area of the centre of gravity

Question 20

what does the centre of gravity allow?

Answer 20

it allows the researchers to predict where crime will next occur
know their base - it is in the centre of gravity

Question 21

what is it called when an invesitgator makes a eductaed guess about where a criminal will attack next?

Answer 21

jeoprady surfaces

Question 22

who produced circle theory?

Answer 22

canter and larkin 1993

Question 23

what two models does circle theory put forward?

Answer 23

the marauder
the comuter

Question 24

the marauder behaviour?

Answer 24

operates close to home

Question 25

the commuter behaviour?

Answer 25

crime far from home

Question 26

research support for geographical profiling

Answer 26

canter - collated info for 120 murder cases in the US. a centre of gravity was found for most and the offdenrs base was in the middle. This suports laim that spatial info us key for determing base of offender

Question 27

evaluate bottom up approach

Answer 27

+ canters research into investigative psych
- Copson found in 48 police it only led to correct identification in 3% of criminals
+ canters research into geographical profiling
+ used on a wide range of cases - bulgary etc better than top-down

Question 28

what did canter find for the top-down approach?

Answer 28

canter analysed data from 100 murderers to see if they had any of the 39 charcetoristics associated with organised and non-organized criminals
found evidence of an organised criminal but not a disorganised one

Question 29

what is the general method of offender profiling?

Answer 29

scrutiny of the crime scene
analysis of evidence (EWT)

Question 30

what does offender profiling mean the investigator can hypothesize?

Answer 30

can hypothosise traits of offender such as age, occupation etc

Question 31

what will offender profillers using the typology approach do?

Answer 31

They will match factors in the crime scene to the pre-existing in the templates found by the FBI

Question 32

who formulated geographical profiling?

Answer 32

rossmo

Question 33

what is data assimilation?

Answer 33

reviewing the evidence

Question 34

what is crime scene classification?

Answer 34

organised vs disorganised

Question 35

what is crime reconstruction?

Answer 35

prediction about the events of the crime

Question 36

what is profile regeneration?

Answer 36

prediction about traits of the offender

Question 37

what is the latin for having your own way for doing something?

Answer 37

modus operandi

Question 38

evaluate top-down approach?

Answer 38

-> Canter = 100 criminals, 39 traits found evidence of organized crime but couldn’t for non-organized
–> only fitting to macabre crimes that could leave evidence behind. Not suitable for crimes like theft which do not tend to reveal much about the offender
–> classification is too simple - more likely to have traits from both types so that means you cant make predictions
–‘>original bases is not generalizable was based on 36 criminals (25 were serial killers)
–> outdated models of personality - old fashioned and static- criminal behavior is not always disposition- situation can change crime

Question 39

investigative psychology A01

Answer 39

• uses statistics and psychological theories to analyse crime scene evidence
• establish likely patterns of behaviour
• develop a database which can be used to compare offences to
• details of offence can be matched to the dtabase
• this will reveal details of the crime
• and you can also determine if many offences are linked
• interpersonal coherence
• time and place
• forensic awareness

Question 40

what details may the database from investigative psychology reveal

Answer 40

their history or family and background

Question 41

what is geographical profiling?

Answer 41

• put forwar by rossomo
• uses the location of crime to make inferences about the home or base of the offender (crime mapping)
• sometimes uses psychological theories to also make inferences about how theyre thinking

Question 42

what does a criminals spatial decisions allow the profiler to know?

Answer 42

• wether it was planned
• age
• mode of transport
• job

Question 43

what was canters research into geographical profiling

Answer 43

analysed a serial murder case of 120 murders and found that their base was in the middle

Question 44

what was canters research into investigative psych?

Answer 44

canter used a statistical tool on 66 criminals that correlated behaviors between them and found behavior associated with crimes and the patterns they develop in. this shows the usefulness of stats on offender profiling