Need To Know Forensics Flashcards
Offender Profiling Top Down – The FBI Approach about
- starts with big picture and then fills in details
- Top Down of FBI approach relies on previous experiences of crimes
- theory that lust murderers are mainly catergorised by two types:
- Organised and disorganised
- is an example of a top-down typology.
Top down approach organised offender characteristics
- crime is planned
- shows self control at crime scene
- leaves few clues
- victim is targeted stranger
- attempts to control victim
- above average IQ
- socially and sexually competent
- married/co habiting
- skilled occupation
Top Down approach disorganised offender characteristics
- little planning
- little attempt to hide evidence at scene
- minimum use of constraint
- random disorganised behaviour
- lives alone near crime scene
- sexually and socially inadequate
- unskilled occupation or unemployed
- physically/sexually abused in childhood
- frightened and confused at time of attack
Biological explanations of crime
- Atavistic Form lombroso
- Lombroso’s theory suggests criminality inherited
- someone “born criminal”’ could be identified by looks
- suggested ‘throwbacks’ people who had biological characteristics from earlier stage of human development that manifested as tendency to commit crimes.
Atavistic Form features
- large jaw
- forward projection of jaw
- low sloping foreheads
- high cheekbones
- flattened or upturned nose
- handle-shaped ears
- large chins
- very prominent in appearance
- hawk-like noses or fleshy lips
- hard shifty eyes
- scanty beard or baldness
- insensitivity to pain
- long arms and tattoos
4 main stages construction of top down profile
- data assimilation-profilers review evidence (crime scene, photos pathology reports etc)
- crime scene classification- decide organised or disorganised
- crime reconstruction-hypotheses in terms of how murder committed in terms of sequence of events, victim actions & offenders actions
- profile generation-create hypotheses related to all aspects of likely offender & life. Ie demographic background, physical characteristics, behaviours & personality type
- then applied to list of suspects & used to narrow down search more effective.
- Modern forensics helpful in proving persons guilt but profiling enables them to be found in first place.
- Douglas explained when theres mix of these types normally caused by-more than 1 offender
- an escalation of situation -actions of victim forcing change in approach
Top down approach
- weakness only applies to one type of crime
–only applies to one type of crime like violent crimes: rape
- other crimes require different applications
- vey limited range of crimes suitable for this type of profiling
- ie repeated successful murders who have no direct connection to victims.
- horrific cases like john duffy are they are very rare
Top down approach
Strength - effective
-system is still widely used and found to be effective
Top down approach
-supporting Qualitative data
- Qualitative data
- gives insight to criminals further help with investigations
Top down profiling
- Weakness canter et al simplistic
- Canter et al suggest top down approach too simplistic to reduce types of criminals to only two
- while douglas added mix typology this isn’t necessarily solution to problem
- suggest top down more based on intuition rather than objective methods could lead to bias in interpretation of evidence
- problem because reduces scientific basis of top down
Top down approach
-weakness canter et al disorganised wasn’t supported
- canter et al (the criminal psychologists from john duffy case) after review 100 murders supported organised category
- yet found disorganised wasn’t supported being for to diverse than allowed for single category
Top down approach
-weakness sample limited
- original sample limited 36 US killers
- 25 of them rarest type a serial killer (killed more than 3 people)
- canter points out data self report isn’t most reliable
Top down approach
-weakness Alison
Alison et al suggests personality theory element of theories outdated
- not inline with modern theories of personality seen to driven by stable internal personality traits hard wired
- modern theories recognise role of environmental factors,personal development
- better explain altering behaviour eg duffys move from raping & ditching to raping & killing
- showing profiling needs updated lack validity due to static nature of profiling system.
Top down approach
- research methods gender bias
- primarily applicable to one type of crime:
- sexual assaults which mean most of offenders concerned are male
- gender bias in approach as research focuses primarily on male offenders
- disorganised or organised female offender may have different characteristics
Restorative justice part 1
-aims to
- system dealing with criminal behaviour
- focuses on rehabilitation for offenders through reconciliation with victims.
- enables offender to see impact of crime
- empowers victims by giving them voice
- relatively new scheme but not new idea
- involves offenders coming face to face with people offended against
- may be sensitive
- needs to be carefully managed but if done properly RJ can be big step forward in offenders rehabilitation
- may help victim put incident behind them & move on
Restorative Justice part 2
-victims feelings and Muslim law
- victims experiences & expectations arent taken into account by justice system
- rj aims to change this crimes seen being against person
- victims allowed to be part of what happens
- restorative justice- voluntary for all parties & seeks positive outcome.
- respectful & not degrading for offender/victim
- rj long history in past more revenge & compensation
- muslim law based on koran dispensed by elders decided amount of compensation victim/victims family entitled to
- suggest system works better than uk system–here fullest prisons in world because feed criminals & become fatter & do crimes again
–experience may be something that can offer to countrys penal system
- restorative justice tough for victims & offenders
- offenders face up to consequences of actions but victims may be forced relive frightening & upsetting experiences
- restorative justice process of managed collaboration between offender & victim based on related principles of healing & empowerment
- supervised meeting 2 parties organised- attended by trained mediator
- victim given opportunity to confront offender & explain how incident affected them
- offender sees consequences of actions,emotional distress caused
- important part of rehabilitation process
Restorative justice part 3
Key features of process
- restorative justice programmes quite diverse but most share key features
- focus on acceptance of responsibility & positive change for people who harm others less emphasis on punishment
- term victims avoided & those responsible for harm may voluntarily choose to meet face to face in a non-courtroom setting
- Other relevant community members may also have role in process
- active rather than passive involvement of all parties in process wherever possible
- focus on positive outcomes for survivors & those whove engaged in wrongdoing
- variations in process not all restorative programmes involve face to face encounters between offender & victim
- offender may occasionally make some financial restitution to victim which may reflect psychological damage done
– or actual physical damage done in case of eg break in -variations of scheme may involve offender reporting damaged property themselves
-restorative justice flexible & can function as alternatives to prison especially if offender= young as add on to community service or as incentive may lead reduction of existing sentence
restorative justice council RJC about part 4
-RJC=independent body whose role=establish clear standards for use of restorative justice/restorative practice,support victim, specialist professionals in field
- RJC advocates use of restorative practice in preventing/managing conflict in many areas
including:
-schools - children services
- workplaces hospitals
- communities as well as prison
Restorative justice evaluation
Weakness- availability
–not available to all offenders
- only those whove admitted crime but victims may reject offer
- cant be global solution
